Sunday November 23

Camp Ocean Pines to El Chorro State Park Campground

There are days on the bike tour where we rush and huff and puff and sweat rivers to reach a school and then continue in a hurry to make camp before dark. Today was not one of those days. Instead, hungry riders gathered around the Camp Ocean Pines breakfast hall at a leisurely 8 o-clock in our pajamas. After breakfast, Camp Ocean Pine’s Naturalist and Raptor caretaker, Scott, introduced riders to two rescued raptors, a noble great horned owl and a juvenile red-tailed hawk. Although the birds fulfill a similar ecological niche, the two birds might be each other’s prey, the owl vulnerable by day, and the hawk, at night.

With our photographer, Dan Sullivan, on board for just one more day, riders celebrated his birthday dressed in fabulous flare. With our hosts waving, a cowboy and cowgirl, Evel Kneivel, a Hawaiian hula girl, a stop sign, a gymnast, and batman’s Robyn tore out of the camp and headed south toward San Luis Obispo. Riders stopped twenty miles down the road at Morrow Bay Estuary to see what happens when fresh and salt water mix. One rider, Abigail went out looking for white pelicans and came back with stories of rare sea otter sightings. Seals and sea lion also attract harbor and great white sharks into the estuary. Taking the day to learn and recuperate, riders witnessed one way that dams and levees can impact animal habitat. With water diverted from the floodplains, sediment flowed through the levee and dumped into the estuary, threatening its very existence. Fortunately, farsighted conservationists advocated for the levee’s removal. With the floodplains largely restored, sediment is now dispersed throughout natural waterways, before reaching the Morrow Bay Estuary.