Elephant seals

One of the really awesome things we did on our SF visit this year was to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Park. I have memories of going there as a child on a school field trip, and my memories seemed impossible: could I really have been walking among the elephant seals, which are gigantic and not friendly? But it's true: that's what you do there. It's astonishing.

First you take a lovely drive down Route 1 on the California coast for about an hour; the boys were entranced. (And Aaron could actually enjoy it, because of his miracle wristbands.) Then you take a wonderful long walk from the parking area down to the beach - a good 30-45 minute stroll. There are pelicans on the way.

And then there you are, at the beach level, basically eye to eye with however many seals you feel like counting. In December there are newborn pups, males fighting for the rights to the harems, and just generally a whole lot of action. It's amazing.

They even come back into the sand dunes when the beach gets too crowded. Tourists like us, walking through the sand dunes, are escorted by a docent, in case we need to detour around a giant seal blocking the trail. They're not aggressive with humans; they just don't care about people at all, which means that if you're in between them and some place they want to go, they'll just mow you down. So we give them a wide berth. The big ones are 5000 lbs, the size of an SUV, so this really doesn't take much convincing.

The highlight of the visit was an epic battle between two males, which went on for upwards of half an hour - very rare. Usually they just face off and somebody loses, but these two were very evenly matched. Look how they're tearing each other up! What a spectacle.

Then a beautiful walk back to the parking lot, and home again. We'd love to do this again next year.