Avila Beach is a small town in the southern part of SLO county. Located at San Luis Bay, the town faces south and thus has a warm microclimate with gentle surf. I was there on Friday night and the town's famous warmth was absent - 40 mph winds were howling through the canyon out to sea, creating waves heading away from shore. Although you can't tell in this photo, I was being pelted with sand.
Our last day at Shenandoah River State Park (SRSP) afforded us the perfect weather for a long stroll. The 57F (14C) temp we woke up to at 6:30a had risen just a few degrees by the time we set out on our walk two hours later. Comfortable temps; plenty of sunshine and blue skies; a light breeze to keep the gnat-like bugs from forming a cloud around us. Couldn’t have asked for better.
Some of the trails in the park may be described as “hiking,” but not the two that we walked this morning. Both were flat with no elevation gain; one was crushed gravel and afforded plenty of shade; the other was gravel with no shade. Admittedly, we didn’t walk the entire length of either trail, so I can only speak to the portions we experienced. And the best part … we had the trails to ourselves for the three hours we were out there walking. Oh yeah; there were two bikers, but they outpaced us quickly, leaving us to enjoy our stroll in peace and quiet.
We kludged together a nice walk for ourselves by combining parts of the
Culler’s (orange) and River (blue) trails.
[map courtesy of the Shenandoah River State Park website]
The center area between the two trails is a wide meadow with clear views of the Massanuten Mountains on the horizon. Although the River Trail follows the Shenandoah River, there are no water-views — except in a few spots where the thicket of bushes and trees have been cleared. These small clearings have a bench where people can take a load off, and we tried that once or twice; but as soon as we sat down, the bugs swarmed around us, so we limited these brief breaks.
Not much more to say about our stroll, so I’ll just share some of the photos I took of flowers and such along the way. First the Culler’s Trail …
(I could have used my zoom lens here — not yesterday’s big mama; rather, my light-weight, but excellent 70-200. There were several goldfinches that kept us entertained for a good portion of the trail by flying and landing just ahead of us, but always out of the reach of my Canon G-12.)
The view from the Culler's Trail was of this big expanse of open space.
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Left: Old fences decorate the scenery on the Cullers Trail.
Right: A cooperative tree swallow perches for a photo op.
Honeysuckle (top left); Spiderwort (bottom left); moth mullein (center);
would appreciate an identification on the last one.
Iris (top Left); yellow goatsbeard bud hosting a big spider (bottom left);
yellow goatsbeard (center); orange poppy [?] (right).
There was no information about this old cabin we came across on the trail … meant to
later stop by the visitor center to ask about it, but forgot to do so.
Peeking through a broken window pane garners these images of the interior of the cabin.
… and then the River Trail …
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Left: Taking a right on to this bridge from Culler’s Trail puts us on the River Trail.
right: finally, a dragonfly that stays put long enough for me to take a picture.
White cabbage butterfly on dame's rocket.
Poison hemlock [?] (top left) and dame’s rocket blooms.
Where the River Trail briefly veers towards Culler’s Trail, we find a great picnic spot in the
front yard of one of the SRSP cabins. Since the cabin is not occupied, and there is a nice
breeze to keep the bugs at bay, we have a quiet lunch here before finishing our walk.
Honeysuckle bushes where the River Trail veers towards the campground provide
one last photo op — a zebra swallowtail butterfly.
It was getting on towards noon when we returned to the coach. After a few quick chores, we started packing things up for departure. SRSP has a 3:00p check-out, which is very nice; no need to mess with late check-out requests.
The return drive was uneventful, and within two hours we had the fuel topped off and were at the storage facility to put the Phaeton to bed for a couple of weeks. See you over Memorial Day Weekend — yes, potential for another episode of the “noisy camping neighbors” saga.
P.S. Our noisy neighbors from yesterday were long gone by the time we returned from our stroll today.
Last evening the road racers and mountain bike racers got together for their annual banquet. Bike Bash 08 was held in the Mallet Lodge at Platte River State Park.
evening were comments by THOR Co-Chair Kent McNeill.
Above and below: The dust storm in Valley of the Gods, Utah. Valley of the Gods is similar to Monument Valley, although on a less "grand" scale. It is a gem of an area, however, and if you are passing through on your way to Blanding from Monument Valley, its worth checking out.
