On New Year’s Day, Wade and I drove up to Cambria, a popular seaside destination in Central Coast California. Midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, this village is about 240 miles or four hours by car from either city. For us, it’s only about an hour away. Taking the scenic Highway 1, we stopped for surf checks and photography along the way. Our day trip also included Piedras Blancas, about six miles from Hearst Castle.
Around noon, we were pulling up to The Human Bean in Morro Bay. Being New Year’s Day, we didn’t expect much to be open. A simple idea started by a couple who in 1998 opened their first location in Oregon, The Human Bean now has more than 260 drive-thrus in the US.
My dad always had this idea that coffee shops were a great business idea. He was one for us being our own boss. His favourite was Honolulu Coffee Company in Vancouver. I think it’s the third coffee business at this corner of West 41st and West Boulevard in Kerrisdale. From a small kiosk in Honolulu, this coffee company has grown to eleven locations in Hawai’i and seven internationally, including three in Canada. Before we left O’ahu, I bought some stickers and a bag as souvenirs from the Honolulu location.
Moonstone Beach
From Morro Bay, Moonstone Beach is about a half-hour drive on the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. Running north-south over 1,000 km, State Route 1’s first section opened in 1930 in Big Sur. Before the entire highway was named SR1 in the 60s, there were separate sections such as Cabrillo Highway, Shoreline Highway, and Coast Highway. These continue to show up on maps.
The drive north was beautiful. We love getting out of the electromagnetic smog of cities. Soon, we were turning off Cabrillo Highway onto Moonstone Beach Drive. At the intersection with Windsor Boulevard, you can turn right for downtown Cambria or left for Moonstone Beach and the boardwalk. Then it’s an immediate right onto Moonstone Beach Drive.
The 1.5-mile boardwalk begins after El Colibri Hotel and Spa on the left side of the road. There’s a parking lot further down, after Stafford Street, and also roadside parking if you keep driving, which is what we did. We pulled into a spot and sat a while listening to music and looking at the ocean. I also went onto the boardwalk barefoot – because wood feels so amazing – to a take some photos of the ocean waves.
Along the boardwalk are stairs going down to the beach. I love that beach/ocean access is generally open to the public in the US. In Hawai’i, and its 750 miles of coastline, the right-of-ways allows public access (of course except military bases). Traditionally, land was divided in pie shape, from mountain to ocean, to ensure all the families have access to land and sea. The ocean is an integral part of the Hawai’ian culture and many continue to fish for their family.
(Here’s a Surfer magazine article about public and private beaches)
Named for the moonstone agates found here, Moonstone beach is also a surf spot. Here you can find a right-hand reef wave and intermediate surfing conditions. Wade’s surfed Moonstone and found it full of beginners. Still, the water here is not as crowded in southern California, or further north in Santa Cruz.
We also stopped near Cambria for another surf check.
Piedras Blancas
In my room, there’s a print of Piedras Blancas by Steve Thomas. Edition 51 of 500. It is a vintage style travel poster of the lighthouse near San Simeon. A Canadian native now based in Minnesota, Steve moved to the US to study informational graphics and worked for the newspapers for over a decade. Brands such as Cliff Bar, Lucasfilm, and Hasbro have also licensed his commercial work.
Meaning “white rocks” in Spanish, Piedras Blancas was a navigational landmark for early sailors. Seeing a gap between Point Conception and Point Sur, a light station was planned for this site. In August 1869, according to a 2019 Tribune article by David Middlecamp, two ships crashed onto the reefs nearby. San Luis Obispo County at that time had fewer than 5,000 people. With whale oil used for lamps, San Simeon Bay served as a whaling station. It was Portuguese whalers who helped save the men from Harlech Castle, one of the two wrecks and the one in which the captain and officers abandoned ship.
Taking about ten months to build with an allocation of $70,000, the light station was first lit on February 15, 1875. This is San Luis Obispo County’s first lighthouse and the twelfth in the state. A Victorian-style house was built in the same year for the lighthouse keepers, the first of whom was Stephen Morse, followed by Captain Lorin Vincent Thorndyke, the principle lightkeeper for nearly thirty years.
The lantern room, along with the fresnel lens which was cut and polished in France, was removed in 1949, following an earthquake that rendered it unsound. That year, an electric beacon was put in and in 1975, the lighthouse was automated (unmanned).
It was not uncommon to hear ghost stories about lighthouses. Surprisingly an online search turned up very little about Piedras Blancas. Weird California did share that people have seen figures on the cliffs.
You can reserve a spot on a guided tour of Piedras Blancas Light Station which includes the Fog Signal Building and the first level of the light station, closed since 1991. The tour includes half a mile of easy trail walking and currently begins 1.5 miles north of the light station, at the former Piedras Blancas Motel on Highway 1.
This 12-room single-story hotel was built in the 1950s and closed in 2005. Within the 300,000 acres the Hearst family owned, this was a parcel of land the family was unable to purchase. The hotel no longer has a sign and its coordinates are 35.68825, -121.28809. Coming from the south, the turn-off is on the left, into a lane near a grove of trees.
Elephant Seal Rookery
Designated as a California Coastal National Monument in 2017, the area around the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse is also a protected wildlife sanctuary. It is an important research area to study marine mammals, including gray whales, California sea otter, and elephant seals.
Northern elephant seals began to come to this area in the early 1990s when the nearby rookeries became too crowded. From the first pup born here in 1992, the rookery now numbers 17,000. The seals born here call Piedras Blancas and Gulf of Alaska home. They return to California to molt, mate, and give birth, with pupping season peaking end of January.
Molting, when the seals get new skin and hair, peaks in May and finishes in August for the males. After molting, the seals return to the sea, where they spend eight to ten months. Adult males measure between 14 and 16 feet and weigh up to 5,000 pounds and adult females can be as large as 12 feet and 1,800 pounds.
The rookery is located south of the lighthouse. We drove past it and parked further north, in the parking lot for the light station. While there were fewer seals here, it was less crowded and a more quiet place to be. This is a beautiful place to come see marine mammals, from a distance. While Wade stayed in the car to watch the waves, I walked toward the trailhead. At the edge of the bluff, I squatted to watch the elephant seals through my long camera lens. The seals looked happy napping and sunning on the beach. I spotted a pup. I also photographed birds.
Piedras Blancas Lighthouse
Taking under a year to build, Piedras Blancas Lighthouse was first lit in February 1875. Originally 100 feet tall, a fog signal building was added in 1905, with the first sound the following year. Its purpose was to guide ships away from the rocky shoreline.
The first principal lightkeeper was Stephen Morse and Captain Lorin Vincent Thorndyke in 1879. It was then run by the US Lighthouse Service and from 1939, the US Coast Guard took over and used it as a lookout for enemy ships. Since 2001, Bureau of Land Management manages Piedras Blancas Light station.
At the end of 1948, an earthquake, one of many over the years that caused damage to the lighthouse, led to the upper part of the building being declared unsound. The lighthouse lost thirty feet when three levels, including the lantern room, were removed. Visitors to Cambria can view its fresnel lens next to the Veterans Memorial Building. Fundraising continues to support efforts to repair the more than 30-year-old enclosure of the lens.
The Piedras Blancas Lighthouse’s white flash had a frequency of 15 seconds, using a clockwork mechanism. It used a first-order fresnel lens, which stands over eight feet tall and six feet wide. The beehive design of a fresnel lens relies on the internal reflection and refraction of hundreds of cut glass surrounding a lamp bulb to produce a more intense light that’s visible further away. First-order fresnel lenses are used for large seacoast lighthouses which can shine light up to twenty-one miles out and were first installed in the early 1800s.
There are two larger sizes – hyperradiant/hyper-radial and mesoradial. Major “landfall” lighthouses such as Makapuu Point Light in the southeasternmost point of O’ahu, Hawai’i, use the hyper-radial fresnel lens, which stands about twelve feet tall.
Downtown Cambria
Cambria did not always have this name. Because none of the other names could be used for different reasons, the residents had to come up with a new one. They went with the suggestion of a small Pennsylvania town someone had just returned from. In another story, it was a local surveyor from Cambria County in Pennsylvania. The town’s original name was Slabtown, from how quickly buildings went up. The others were Rosaville, San Simeon, and Santa Rosa. Established in 1866, Cambria was officially named in 1870 and in about five years, it became San Luis Obispo County’s second largest town.
It was once an outpost, much like any in the Wild West. Wooden boardwalks and muddy streets, with shootings and drunk miners. Cambria was popular since a regular coastal steamer kept it supplied. Cargo was floated ashore and goods like hides were taken by rowboats to the ships. This continued even after George Hearst built a pier due to his high fees.
In the 1950s, Cambria became a seasonal village for those looking for recreation. The opening of Hearst Castle in 1958 brought year-round visitors.
Cambria was our last stop. We pulled onto Main Street and into one of the few open spots we saw. Passing a couple of options, we went with Cambria Coffee. Wade grabbed a coffee and I had Spiced Cider. It was a great place to sit down for a bit and decide what to do next. I took a peek at Half Moon clothing store for women. It’s organized by colour, making it easy to shop. I did find a couple of tops I like, though I didn’t feeling like trying anything on. It’d been a long day. I also popped across the street to Granny Had One, which has a very large, interesting, and diverse collection.
Cambria hosts events throughout the year. Check their events calendar to coordinate your trip. Spring is a great time to come see the wildflowers bloom. A local favourite is the Cambria Christmas Market which will run from November 29 to end of December this year. This is a night market that opens from 5PM to 9PM, with gates closing at 8:30PM. Last Christmas we spent at Half Moon Bay. Perhaps this year, we’ll make it to the Cambria Christmas Market.
For a town dating back a few hundred years, it invariably will have tales of tragedy and woe. Melody Coe of Cambria Historical Society shared a number of stories with Kathe Tanner for The Tribune, including ghost busting by a Chumash Elder at Cambria Pines Lodge, an exorcism at Park Hill, and the sightings at Bluebird Inn and Rigdon House.
James Papp also talked about Bluebird Inn, Cambria’s historic motel in the East Village, in his article for Slocal. This is the blue Carpenter Gothic cottage built by George Lull in 1880 for his second wife, Mary Inman. Many have reported seeing her on the balcony and elsewhere on the premises. Apparently Bluebird Inn is popular for writers because it is quiet.