On Monday, Tim, Pam and I visited Seal Beach, Children's Pool, in La Jolla. The beaches in La Jolla are lined with cliffs and large rocks along with the sandy beaches. In 1931 a retaining wall was built at one section of La Jolla beach to create a "children's pool" so children could enjoy the beach in calmer waters. This was a time before swimming pools were built at homes. It was a popular place to take your children to play. Through the years it also became a popular place for seals and sea lions due to the same protective wall. The seals began to take over the beach which in turn created an easy way to seal watch. Along the California coast it is not hard to see seals and watch them play but the Children's pool in La Jolla made it very easy to get up close and personal with the seals. I had never been there before but I was like a little kid watching the seals swim and play in the water. The pups were closer to the beach on the small rocks along the beach and the older and larger seals stayed on the big rocks located on the other side of the retaining wall. It was the beginning of low tide while we were visiting so the seals were just starting to get to their spots for some rest. The wall was built so you can walk on it and view the beach and the rocks on both sides. There is a huge controversy going on about this beach. There are several La Jolla residents that would like to get rid of the seals and restore the beach for children. There are also several organizations for the seals wanting to close the beach completely to humans and let the seals have it. As a tourist I have to agree with the animal organizations because the beach does allow access for seal watching which is a lot more entertaining than kid watching. Plus there are so many beaches in the area let the seals have this one. At one point a scuba diver swam up to the beach. It was cute to see the pups dive into the water. The scuba diver scared them since they did not know what he was. He did look like some kind of sea creature when he swam up to the beach and got out of the water. If you are in the San Diego area it is well worth a trip to Seal beach to go seal watching.
Today is our last day in California. Tomorrow we start our West Coast to East Coast journey. We will be traveling 2954 miles from west to east with several stops along the way. We will be taking our time getting back to Jacksonville, about 5 weeks. Some of our stops along the way will include Las Vegas, NV; Cottonwood, AZ(Sedona area) and Albuquerque and Alamogordo, NM. We enjoyed our East Coast to West Coast journey and we are looking forward to our West Coast to East Coast journey home. The saying, "It's not the destination, it's the journey" is really true!
No comments:
Post a Comment