A short trip from LA, Pismo Beach is just over 2.5 hours (with minimal traffic), and a great weekend adventure! Not only does Pismo have beaches, coastal bluffs and grassy rolling hills, but in that area is the Oceano Sand Dunes! I had initially planned to go in order to visit the Pismo Monarch Butterfly Grove. Between November and early March, monarch butterflies from the interior come to coastal California to escape the cold winters. One of the places they go is Pismo beach with many eucalyptus trees to live on. Arriving around midday Saturday, the Monarch grove was my first stop. It was hard to capture because I didn’t see a lot of clusters, but always pleasant to walk around with butterflies flying around you. This grove is also next to Pismo State Beach and has short walking trails out to the beach. It was an incredibly warm weekend when I visited, so after walking around with the fluttering monarchs, I walked over to the beach to eat lunch and read my book for a bit.

I had checked the tides and it was supposed to be -1.54ft around 3:30 which gave me plenty of time before doing sunset in the sand dunes. So I went over to the Margo Dodd/ Dinosaur Caves Park to look in some tide pools. There is a great coastal path going through the kids park and along the bluffs to walk, and stairs down to Pismo Beach Rock Beach which was a beautiful sliver of coast with tide pools and natural caves. It was so warm I even went to swim in the sliver of coast that wasn’t too rocky. I was able to find a handful of starfish, but unfortunately a lot less than I saw when tide pooling in Santa Cruz a few weeks before. I later learned this is because in warmer waters there is a disease called Sea Star Wasting Syndrome (SSWS) that was wiped out a large portion the southern populations. Which then made sense why I was seeing soooo many in Santa Cruz (the most I’ve ever seen there and I’ve been tide pooling in Santa Cruz for 8 years now) because they are migrating north to avoid the sickness as well. Just in the years that I’ve lived in California I can see such a huge difference in the starfish behavior, specifically Ochre starfish, and it is really devastating how fast our natural world is effected by human impact.

After finishing at the beach, I hustled over to the non-vehicle section of the sand dunes. This is extremely important to be aware of when visiting any sand dunes that allow off roading, it can be extremely difficult or impossible for those driving on the sand dunes to see people walking in their path because of the peaks and valleys of the dunes. However, these sand dunes have a space specifically dedicated to people on foot where nobody is allowed to drive any vehicle. Many people use this area to sand surf, but unfortunately I did not have a sled (next time). At sunset, the cascading light over the dunes is absolutely gorgeous, but it was also a rising full moon which caught most of my attention in the time before the sun went down and the moon went all the way up. It was a really beautiful place to enjoy sunset, and even though there was a large number of people there, the dunes are so large you can find an area to be on your own.

Since I had spent a lot of time with the moon the evening before, I knew I wanted to go to the sand dunes again for sunrise to really run around and enjoy the dunes. Arriving just before the sun rose, I saw a bobcat on the drive in! Great way to start the morning! Getting to the dunes as first light starts to hit was perfect, I spent the morning there running around, eating breakfast, journaling, and just enjoying the moment. After the initial sunrise I had the dunes completely to myself for an hour or so. Climbing to the taller dunes you can see the ocean, mountains and town of Pismo off in the distance. You can also see the parts of the dunes closer to the ocean where people can drive and camp on, all trucks though, and I wasn’t going to risk needing a tow to get out so I lived vicariously through them from a distance.

Since all the hills were so green I wanted to go inland for a hike before heading back down to LA. I ended up choosing Johnson Ranch Loop, which was exactly what I wanted with the rolling green hills. This area has some good flower blooms later in the year, so I will definitely have to come back to this area to see the blooms as I could see the start of some wildflowers on the hike. As it got to midday, I went over to Avila Beach to journal and take a dip. The drive back home wasn’t too bad (other than massive traffic on the 405 in my last few miles home as always), and was a really nice and fairly quick weekend getaway.