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Back Bay Inn

My wargaming buddy Larry and I always have a game session on Friday of GMT weekend. Sometimes we play at Consimworld Expo too. We always play an East Front game: Turning Point Stalingrad, Stalingrad Verdun on the Volga, Konigsberg, Narva, Panzer Battles, Panzergruppe Guderian. This year it was Red Typhoon from Revolution Games. (Ok, ok. One time we played a Bulge game - Bastogne: Screaming Eagles Under Siege.) Larry works at a boutique hotel on the Central Coast of California, the Back Bay Inn, in the town of Los Osos. I've always meant to go there and stay a few days but have never made it. A few years ago Sandy and I had planned a trip and even made reservations but had to cancel out. I don't even remember why. This spring when we decided to do a trip to the California Coast, we included a stay at the Back Bay Inn. We spent the first half of the week in Monterey and Carmel and then planned to stay for three nights in Los Osos before heading home.

We took an entire day totravel down the Big Sur coast from Monterey. We had to hurry at the end because we wanted to get checked in at the hotel in time for the complimentary wine served during Happy Hour. (The asture observer will notice a consistent theme in the hotels that we pick.)

When we arrived our first impression of the hotel was that it was very nice. It was right on the water, but was quite a bit different from the Monterey Tides, where we had stayed the past three nights. There a strong wind blew straight in from the ocean and across Monterey Bay causing the beach to be constantly pounded by big waves. You could always hear them even when you couldn't see them. Lying in bed to go to sleep, you could hear the surf. Here Morro Bay was very sheltered, protected by a long spit of land coming up from the south, with only a narrow channel less than 500 feet wide leading to the ocean. And we were on yet a smaller bay in the back of Morro Bay (hence the name, Back Bay) that was even more sheltered. There was virtually no wind and no waves at all. It reminded me more of a lake than an ocean. Still very pretty, but in a different way. In Monterey, with cloudy skies, cool temperatures, wind and big waves, the atmosphere had been one of power and awe. Here it was warm, sunny and calm. It was peaceful. This was a place to rest and relax.

The Back Bay Inn is located in the Baywood Park area of Los Osos. Along the north shore of the bay, Baywood Park is a quiet, sleepy little neighborhood. Besides our hotel, there was another small hotel across the street. There was a Mexican restaurant, a Thai takeaway place, and a block away, a brew pub and a pizza place. There was also a tiny neighborhood market, not much more than a convenience store. That was it. Most of the people that we saw in the restaurants were locals. It was quite a contrast from the hordes of tourists in Monterey and the rich, exclusive places in Carmel.

The hotel was small, with only sixteen rooms. Our room had a window that looked out over the bay. We spent evenings watching the Brewers with the view of the water in the background. Our room also had a fireplace. It was a gas fireplace, which was nice because in the evening when it started to get cool we could turn it on with the flick of a switch. There were also seating areas outside where you could enjoy the weather and admire the view. One was right in front of the hotel, next to the water. If it was breezy, there was another patio area with glass screens to block the wind. There was a walking path along the bay and there was always someone from the neighborhood walking by with their dog.

We checked in, unloaded the car, and made it just in time to get a glass of wine at Happy Hour. Later we walked over to Nardonne's La Famiglia Pizzeraia for dinner. Just as the name says, it was a small, family-owned pizzaria that was only a block away from the hotel. Their pizza was excellent. Since the weather was nice we ate on their patio. We were lucky enough to have it all to ourselves. Then it was back to the hotel. My friend Larry had come in to work so we said hello and chatted for a while. We told him a little about our trip so far, but mainly we talked about what game Larry and I were going to play at Consimworld Expo in August. There were just so many East Front games to choose from. Then Sandy and I retired to our room to watch the Brewers game.

The next morning was bright and sunny. We got a surprise when we looked out our window. The ocean was gone! It turns out that the bay that we were looking over the evening before was at most two or three feet deep. With the tide out, the entire bay was nothing but a huge mudflat. It didn't matter. We hadn't planning to sit around admiring the view all day.

The hotel didn't have a restaurant but it did give us a ten dollar voucher for the coffee stand right next door. Sandy is the breakfast person so she was anxious to get over there. Even at California prices it was enough for her to get a muffin and a cup of coffee, with enough left over for me to get a Diet Coke. Suitably fortified, we set off for day.

Montana de Oro State Park is just a short drive south of Los Osos. The park's eight thousand acres include seven miles of coastline and the first line of mountains inland. It has a lot of good hiking. The Valencia Peak Trail starts close to sea level and climbs about twelve hundred feet in two and a quarter miles. At 1,347 feet the mountain is the second highest in the park and is an exceptional viewpoint. The trail is steep and loose though and Sandy's foot was bothering her a little, so we decided to try a different trail first and hold that one for another day.

The Bluff Trail follows the top of the bluffs (hence the name) along the ocean for a little over two miles. It's a wide, level trail - quite easy. There are spur trails along the way that climb up about a half a mile to the road that runs parallel to the trail. Quite a few descriptions of the trail refer to the trail as a loop, but that would entail walking up to the road and then following it back to the start point. Not very interesting. We did the trail as a straight out and back. Better to hike a trail close to the ocean than a road close to traffic.

The hike was excellent. It was a bright, sunny day with the temperature around seventy degrees. There was a breeze, as there always is near the ocean, but wearing a light windbreaker for part of the hike was sufficient to stay comfortable. Most of the time we were hiking in just jeans and a tshirt. The trail followed the top of cliffs that were fifty to seventy feet high, overlooking big waves breaking against rocks and cliffs. There were lots of sea birds. I'm not any good at identifying birds but lots of species have been identified by hikers. One offshore rock was completely covered with birds. It was cool to watch the birds soaring over the ocean and then zooming between rocks and out over the waves again. At one point we stopped to sit on an AfterLife bench where we could take a break and look out over the ocean (we just finished watching the show recently). It was a good place to relax and think deep thoughts.

After our hike we made a few stops in downtown (such as it is) Los Osos. There was a nursery, and Sandy wanted to check for a particular plant that she really wanted but couldn't find in Boise. No luck. Then we made a stop at Ralph's Market to get some snacks. We had much better luck with that.

That afternoon we headed into Morro Bay, a town just north of Los Osos along the coast. It's actually smaller than Los Osos, with just ten thousand people, but it seemed bigger. It might be because Los Osos is primarily residential while Morro Bay has a lot more businesses. The Pacific Coast Highway also goes right through Morro Bay while it bypasses Los Osos. There is a sizeable harbor in Morro Bay and commercial fishing is one of its two main industries. The other is tourism, and there a number of shops and restaurants along the Embarcadero, the street which runs along the harbor.

Morro Bay is dominated by two features. One is Morro Rock, a 581 ft high rock monolith at the entrace to the harbor. It used to be an island but is now connected to the mainland by a causeway built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940's. It is the last of the Nine Sisters, a string of volcanic plugs extending in a line from the town of San Luis Obispo to the ocean. The climber in me got excited seeing Morro Rock, but access to the rock is prohibited to all but members of the Salinan tribe, who consider it sacred. They climb it only twice a year on each of the solstices. Interestingly, the Chumash tribe also considers it sacred and hold that no one should ever be permitted to climb the rock, including the Salinan trible. There is an ongoing legal dispute between the two tribes. The rest of us have to be content with remote views from a drone. What is possible to visit is Morro Rock State Beach, which stretches north from Morro Rock, and is very popular. The parking lot at the base of the rock was always full of cars and buses whenever we were in town.

The other dominant feature is the Cynergy power plant. Built in the 1950's, it's three smoke stacks tower over everything in town. At 450 feet, they're far taller than everything except Morro Rock. It's definitely ugly. I understand that power plants have to be built somewhere, but right on a scenic section of coastline doesn't seem to be a good choice. The power plant shut permanently in 2014 and now the building is abandoned. In 2021 the city council voted to work out a deal with the current owner of the building to have the stacks demolished. Surprisingly some residents oppose the demolition. "Three stacks and a rock" has become the slogan of Morro Bay. It's even used in the logo for Wavelengths Surf Shop and is the name of a local brewery. Some residents claim it sets Morro Bay apart from other coastal towns. Yeah, but not in a good way IMHO. It just goes to show that you can never get everyone to agree on anything.

We parked a block from the power plant and walked about half way along the waterfront. Although it is a working harbor for commercial fishing, there were actually a lot of nice tourist-oriented shops and food places. Some of them had cool tshirts, so I was favorably impressed. But unlike Monterey, it wasn't very crowded, so ambling along and looking in the shops was actually quite pleasant, especially on a nice, sunny day.

In the middle of the waterfront is the Morro Bay T-Pier, which is marked on Google Maps as an "otter viewing area". Sure enough, when we went by there were three otters just floating there, in between all of the boats. They were lying in the water on their backs, just taking it easy. There's a colony of otters that lives in Morro Bay and some are almost always visible along the waterfront. I've always thought that otters are pretty cool. If I get reincarnated as an animal it might be fun to come back as an otter.

Later that afternoon we met Larry for an early dinner at Beerwood. It's website describes it as a "community gathering spot". It was an easy walk - just a block from the hotel. They had a nice patio where we could eat, sample some local beer and enjoy the nice weather.

One of the things I asked Larry about was how Los Osos had managed to stay undeveloped. Walking near the hotel, I think every single block had at least one vacant lot. In Boise, with its hot housing market, houses and apartments are being squeezed into every tiny space available. I would have expected the same here. Larry said that for a long time growth had been limited by a state ban on installing new septic systems, which meant no new houses could be built. With runoff into the very shallow bay, pollution would be a big problem. I have to admit that this is one of the rare cases that I know of government getting ahead of a problem, rather than waiting till things are terrible before they take any action. I really liked the town and it could have very easily been wrecked by development. Now that much of the town is on their sewer system, the building moratorium may be lifted. Los Osos may look very different in a few years.

The other important thing that Larry and I talked about was the upcoming Consimworld Expo this summer. It took a long time, but we finally decided on the game that we are going to play there. It will be Enemy Action: Kharkov, a soon-to-be-released game from Compass Games. It's an East Front game, of course.

Since we had an early dinner, we were back to the hotel in plenty of time for Happy Hour. We watched the Brewer game in the evening, again.

We did a little more exploring on our last day. We were going to do some wine tasting but ran into the same problem that we did in Monterey/Carmel. The wineries all had high tasting fees and required advanced reservations. We are pretty low key when we go wine tasting so that wasn't for us. Instead I just went to the tiny market near our hotel and bought a couple of bottles of local wine. They were relatively inexpensive and we could take them home to do our own wine tasting at our leisure. Edna Valley sauvignon blanc was our favorite and it turned out that we can even find it in Boise.

It was only a fifteen minute drive into San Luis Obispo so we went there to have a look around. Sandy checked out the local quilt shop but it was very small and she didn't find anything interesting. We did find a good doughnut shop next to it though, so the time wasn't wasted. We also stumbled across Sandy's Liquor Store. I was impressed to find out that she had a liquor store named after her. She's more famous than I thought. Then we headed back to Morro Bay.

We started by driving up Black Hill in Morro Bay State Park. It's the second of the Nine Sisters. 661 feet high, it rises just behind the town of Morro Bay. We drove through the Morro Bay Golf Course (I'm noticing a pattern in place names here) on the lower slopes of Black Hill. It looked like there were good views from the course and if we ever went back to the area, it would be fun to play there. We hadn't played golf since before the pandemic, so we weren't going to start while we were on a trip.

There are lots of trails that lead to the top of Black Hill. We took the easiest one. From the end of the road it's a little over half a mile and just under two hundred feet of elevation gain to the top. The summit provides a great viewpoint over Morro Rock, the ugly power plant, the town, all of Morro Bay, and up and down the coast. Afterwards we headed back down to the waterfront in Morro Bay.

We had time to explore it more thoroughly today. This time we went all the way from one end to the other. Sandy found some things that she liked at Paula Radke Art Glass Gallery. She bought a pair of nice earrings. She also bought two pretty and unique tumbler wine glasses. She got them from Paula herself, the artist and owner of the shop. At another shop we each got a new zip hoodie with Morro Bay logos. It had been a long winter and cool spring and we had both worn out our everyday sweaters that we wore in the house. At two for forty bucks, it was a good deal.

Oh yeah. I bought two Morro Bay tshirts too. I'll bet you're surprised. And I even got a Milwaukee Brewer bumper sticker. It's not exactly where I would have expected to find one, but there you go. It was a good thing that we drove on this trip and had lots of room in the car to take home all the stuff that we had bought.

Doing all that shopping was hard work and in the process we had both worked up a big appetite. We had linner at Tognazzini's Dockside Restaurant. Besides the restaurant they had a fishing boat and a fish market so we figured their fish and seafood would be fresh. Even though it was an Italian restaurant, I passed up their pizza and pasta and ordered the halibut fish and chips. I don't do that very often but it turned out to be a good choice.

After that it was back to the hotel for, you guessed it, Happy Hour and then the Brewer game. While we were watching we got most of our stuff packed and loaded into the car so we would be ready to go. Next morning we got an early start and had an uneventful drive back home. I thought it was a really nice vacation, especially the second half. I would definitely go back to the Big Sur/Morro Bay/Los Osos area again. I'd even go golfing next time,