At dinner I asked our waitress her recommendation for something to do the next day. She asked if we wanted to go to the best place on earth. YES. She tells us about this "slice of heaven" within Montana de Oro State Park called Spooner's Cove. I don't know why she shares this with us, because her sentence starts with "I usually don't tell tourists this, but..." But she did. She even wrote us directions... "...at the very end the magical beach is called Spooner's"
Sunday started with breakfast at Frankie and Lola's Front Street Cafe, french pastries at La Parisienne, and sightseeing at Morro Bay's Fisherman Wharf. Then the drive through the state park, through the arching eucalyptus trees.
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| Fisherman's Wharf |
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| Eucalyptus trees in the entrance of Montana de Oro State Park |
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| Spooner's Cove |
We got to Spooner's during high tide, clouds filling the sky. After a little while I was ready to go, but Joey had other plans. He wanted to hike Bluff Trails, so we did, and as we're looking out at the rocky coastline, Joey's pretending to listen to me talk about who knows what, but he's scoping out the perfect spot. That's when a random old man walks up to us and asks if we are locals. He tells us that he lives 35 miles away, but comes here often to an area nearby with tide pools that are just beautiful. A place that some of the locals don't even know about. He said there's a sign, and that you need to look out for it because you could miss it. And then he walks away. (My version of the story goes a little bit different - I like to say that the old man vanishes into thin air.)
Corallina Cove, Montana de Oro State Park
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| Great view of Corallina Cove from hikespeak.com |
And as we're standing there, Joey asked me to marry him.
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| The spot |
The sun broke and the fisherman on the beach started clapping. Then we took off for Santa Barbara.
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| Dinner in the courtyard of Wine Cask |
