Montana de Oro State Park

I forget sometimes how beautiful California actually is. The drive from Orange County to the Central Coast was absolutely breathtaking. Rolling hills, rugged coastline, winding mountains- I had a new found sense of appreciation for my beautiful home state. The one thing that I really wanted to do on our vacation was visit Montana de Oro State Park. So many people told us that we would not be disappointed. What an understatement. Montana de Oro means Mountain of Gold. The poppies and wildflowers cover the mountains during spring giving the park it's name. We were there before the flowers bloomed but I can't imagine it being any prettier.

As we drove on the road that took us into the park, the view of Moro Bay in the distance was unbelievable. The wind was blowing and the waves were crashing amongst the rocks. We could have watched for hours.

We stopped to take some pictures of the sand dunes. Those dunes are huge! Some of them are over 100 feet tall. We felt bad walking on them and leaving our footprints because the sand was so undisturbed as if we were the first people to ever venture across them.

It was really windy down there so after Corey coerced me to take a quick jog on the beach, I begged him to return to our car. There were people riding their horses on the beach right in the surf- it looked cold. Brrr.

As we drove further into the park, there were eucalyptus trees everywhere! They formed a canopy over the road and made you feel as if you were transported into a totally different country. There were lots of turnouts that marked trailheads so we just randomly picked some on a whim.

On one trail, there were these HUGE knotted and tangled trees. The pictures really do not show how big they were but it was kind of unbelievable. At the back end of the state park was the Bluff Cliff trail. This was basically my reason for wanting to go to Montana de Oro.

The trail is several miles along the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Corey and I were blown away by the beauty of it. We also couldn't believe that we were "allowed" to be so close to the edge. Corey kept saying "Not so close, Laura!"

One false move and we would have been in the ocean. We stayed on the trail for the most part but we did make one little excursion off trail to a secluded beach. It had tall bluff walls and was a secluded little piece of paradise.

On the beach there were all sorts of tide pools extending out several yards. Corey walked off amongst them but I knew I would fall in if I even attempted it so I stayed put.

The sun was quickly setting and we knew it would become pitch black within an hour so we decided to head back to our car. The hours we spent at Montana de Oro were probably my favorite of the weekend.