Cambria

For many years, my life was horses, horses, and horses. The older I get, the more I appreciate doing things that have nothing to do with my over-sized, four-legged friends. While doing things with my husband doesn't always included our other four-legged friends - visiting Croatia for example, it usually does And boy, were they a big pain in the patootie!

The view from our hotel's deck chairs.

On Sunday, my husband took me (and the dogs!) to Cambria for a two-night stay to celebrate our 29th anniversary. While I love both dogs, they're a lot to manage when we travel. They're constantly thirsty, they want out all the time, and they love to pee at four in the morning.

Breakfast each morning.

The motel was very pet friendly with all sorts of canine amenities - dog biscuits in the lobby, no carpet, enclosed patios, lots of grass, dog bowls, and so on. Even so, every time one wanted out, we had to snap on leashes, grab poop bags, and herd both dogs to the pet area.

A very calm day on the Pacific Ocean.

When we weren't looking for a polite place to let them do their business, we drove up past San Simeon, home to Hearst Castle, to check out the elephant seals. The Piedras Blancas Rookery claims to be the only elephant seal rookery in the world that is easily accessible, free, and open to the public every day of the year. If you've never seen them before, they're pretty impressive. ​Elephant seal bulls can reach 16 feet in length and weigh up to 5,000 pounds.

For this visit - we've seen them many times, the seals were in a location that was really close to the fence which gave us a much closer look than we've ever had before. We could see their faces, their battle scars, and in one case, even a tag number that had been left on the seal's skin.

Elephant Seals

Besides watching the elephant seals, we ate some amazing seafood and watched two spectacular sunsets. If you've never seen the sun set in the Pacific Ocean, you should come out for a visit. It's a hard sight to beat.

First sunset

The next night's sunset was even prettier.

Sean and Brienne in the sunset glow.

Even Tobi got in on the action.

The last few seconds ...

We're already looking forward to next time.