Elfin forest and the Morro Bay sand spit

On Sept 13 we went for a couple of hikes.  The first was a short one through the Elfin forest, a reserve of coastal scrub just south of Morro Bay.

The main feature of this reserve are the stands of twisted oak trees, they are pretty cool:

They have lots of black sage, also very cool looking:

There are also good views of tidal mud flats where a river meets the bay:

The sand spit hike was in Morro Bay state park, although you get to it through the Montana de Oro state park.  You hike down from the dunes to get to the sand spit:

I love beach walking.  I'll spare you too many photos as they're pretty similar to each other, but I liked this one of the birds waiting to see what the next wave would wash in.  The sand spit was almost empty of other humans, it was very quiet out there.

These dunes are huge, the photo doesn't do them justice.  They're closed to hikers for a few months over the summer (including September, so we couldn't hike into them) for shore bird nesting.

Seaweed sometimes looks like a carrot: