Episode 41 - Morro Bay ⛺️
Ostriches, SpaceX launch, and the most magical time at the beach :)
And we’re back!
I know that you all have been on the EDGE of your seats since the last Adventure with Dennis episode dropped in January, and here we are for the next one already.
“So, Dennis”, you’re wondering. “Where’d you go?”
Great question, dear reader! And the answer is Morro Bay!
I led another Excursion Club trip there with my friend and fellow Excursion trip lead Dylan, and it was such a tremendous time. We had a ton of fun, everyone was super cool, we saw so many epic things (ostriches and SpaceX launch, anyone?), and there were, fortunately, no catastrophic incidents like on the Joshua Tree trip we led last quarter.
Crisis averted. Phew 😮💨
So come one, come all, on the magical trip to Morro Bay!
But before we get to the actual trip, let’s talk about how we actually picked who went since it’s a pretty funny story.
The Excursion Club has a GroupMe with ~800 members in it, so Dylan and I sent out a Google Form into the chat for people to apply for the trip. And in theory, we would’ve randomly picked some people from that form to go.
In reality, however, since it was the last trip that Dylan and I were leading a trip together (and my last time leading a trip for Excursion Club at all), Dylan and I wanted to make sure we had some friends on the trip to guarantee an epic time.
And what that basically meant was that Dylan and I nepo’ed around 75% of the people on the trip. Nepo, of course, derived from nepotism, meaning that we handpicked the trip participants.
Out of the ~20 people that went, I chose 10, Dylan another 3. We then selected the drivers so that we had enough room for everyone to go, and by that point, we only had around 4 spots left.
We then looked into the Google Form responses to see who to pick (especially prioritizing the joke question responses to see how funny the applicants were), and we realized that there were a few people with 925 area codes.
For those of you who don’t have the privilege of being from the 925, it’s the area code for the East SF Bay Area. Us 925 folks are very patriotic about being from the East Bay (especially me), and since both Dylan and I are from there (I’m from Antioch, he’s from Martinez), we decided to bring all the applicants with a 925 area code onto the trip.
And once we did that, there were no spots left for anyone else. lol
And so the story begins! Our Morro Bay squad is made up of my friends, Dylan’s friends, drivers, and people from the 925. Now that’s GUARANTEED to be an epic time.
Let’s do this thing!
Saturday, February 1st, 2025
After weeks of planning and exciting preparation, the Morro Bay trip was finally here. We were all to meet up at De Neve Turnaround at 9 am, so my roommates and I (both of whom were nepo’ed onto the trip 😄) woke up around 7:30 to pack, eat breakfast, and drink our morning coffees.
And drink our morning coffees, we did! We headed across the street to our beloved HHH and had our coffees outside on our lovely patio in the nice morning sun. What a wonderful place!
It was so wonderful, in fact, that we spent a bit too much time on that patio, and were scrambling to get back to the room to pack for the trip on time. Alex (aka Sasha) was going to pick us up at 8:45 am to get to De Neve at 9, but fortunately, he got there at 8:52 so we weren’t even that late.
If he had actually gotten to ours at 8:45, there would’ve been no way we’d be ready on time.
We made it to De Neve at 9, and there were already so many people there! I introduced myself to the few folks that I didn’t know (since I had nepo’ed on so many people lol), and then we got into a large circle to do introductions. When I went to WROLC a few weeks before, Brooke had taught us this super fun game where you pass a ball around in the introduction circle; when you catch the ball, you introduce yourself, where you’re from, a fun fact, and toss it to someone new.
Once everyone introduces themselves, you repeat the order of the tossing, calling the person of the name before you toss. THEN, you do the same thing again, but backward! This way, you get to learn everyone’s name and a fun fact about them pretty quickly, and in a pretty fun way, too.
And in our version of this introduction game, we had the added excitement of the ball being made out of the hardest plastic imaginable, making the stakes even higher when attempting to catch it. Plus, I found it tremendously funny when a few of our trip members realized that they were all from the 925, and proceeded to remark on “how funny of a coincidence” that was.
Let me assure you, that was no accident!
Once we had finished our introductions and everyone got into their cars, we were off toward Solvang. In my car were my two roommates, Sasha, and Hudson, and we had a tremendous time the whole way.
But!
An adventure came early in our drive, much earlier than anticipated: as we were driving down Gayley, we heard a lot of rattling coming from the roof of the car. We stopped at a red light (passing by the co-op food delivery driver in the process, what an actual coincidence there), and realized that I had forgotten to take a cooking pot I’d brought off the roof of the car before we left for Solvang. The rattling was the pot almost falling off the car, and the lid was already lost to the streets of Westwood.
That’s what I fondly call a “bruh moment”. 🤦♂️
The rest of our drive to Solvang was pretty uneventful, with great vibes and chats the entire way. I was getting such deja vu, since the road we were taking was the exact same one that Sasha and I had taken almost exactly a year before — on a different backpacking trip last January, Sasha was again driving, I was again in the passenger seat, and I met my amazing friends Sasha (on this trip, too), Akshat, Dylan (my fellow trip-lead), Ellie, Jess, and my girlfriend, Brooke. What a crazy feeling that drive was, let me tell you!
Along the way to Solvang, we made a quick stop in Santa Barbara to pick up my skis from Brooke’s cousin’s house (it’s a long story), and picked some oranges from their backyard, too. Nice!
Our stop in Santa Barbara was ~10 minutes long, and we were back on the road in no time. I volunteered to be in the middle seat in the back so that no one else would have to suffer with my skis on their head, and before we knew it, we had made it to Solvang! Two of the other three cars were there already, with Ariv’s car a ways behind since they stopped at a Scientology office in Ventura.
Classic.
Solvang is a really interesting place — it’s in the middle of the SoCal countryside, and out of nowhere appears this random Danish-looking town that was built by Danish immigrants to the Midwest ~100 years ago. They’re a bunch of cute shops and stores, and it’s a really neat place to walk around every time.
(I just learned that you can embed videos into Substack articles, this is SO cool!)
And so our three cars proceeded on an epic adventure around Solvang — we stopped by an olive oil store (where we collectively drank many, many samples), checked out the Hans Christian Andersen Museum (he’s the Danish dude who wrote a bunch of famous fairytales, and all of Solvang really loves him as a result), and listened to a lot of lovely antique music machine at a collectibles shop having a closing sale. It was really, really cool!
By this point, we were hungry and ready for lunch. In the spirit of loving this Hans Christian Andersen guy, we ate lunch at the picnic tables right near a huge statue of his head:
Lunch was delicious — pita bread with hummus, peppers, cucumbers, and salami. Sloane described it as “a guy lunch”, which Hudson and I wholeheartedly agreed with. And since we were guys, we did love the guy lunch very much.
Yum!
Around this time, Dylan and I met up to decide what to do for the rest of the day — we were generally heading in the direction of Morro Bay (that rhymed wow), and figured we had some time to do a few more stops if we wanted to. The main two options on the table were:
Ostrichland USA, which is one of the greatest places on Earth
Going to see a SpaceX rocket launch at Vandenburg Space Force Base at 3 pm (you can see their entire launch schedule here and see the launches here, so cool!)
We weren’t too sure which one we should go to, and I figured that seeing a literal rocket ship fly to space would be the clear winner. Yet the vote was extremely close, with Sloane in particular being very pro-Ostrichland.
I was quite surprised by the support Ostrichland was receiving, but to be completely fair to everyone, I had really hyped up Ostrichland the entire trip so far and was explaining to everyone just how awesome it was all day.
So, we decided to just send it and do both. We got some super quick ice cream in Solvang (Caleb and I shared a pistachio cone), and then left for Ostrichland just a few miles down the road.
For those that don’t know what Ostrichland USA is, it’s quite possibly the greatest place in all of Southern California. Basically, it’s a huge reserve for ostriches and emus, where you can feed them, pet them, and see them running around. Plus, they have fluffy bunnies, and an even fluffier cat! Admission is a few bucks, and each one of the food containers is an extra $1.
Honestly, I could be there all day and just keep feeding those ostriches and emus. (it’s really funny how their heads and bodies are both spheres, and the body sphere is like 100x the volume of the head sphere)
This was my 6th time visiting Ostrichland, and let me tell you, it only gets better and better each time. Our group LOVED it! We were all feeding them. We were all going all in. So many great pictures. We were patting their heads. Feeding them out of our hands and bowls. I put some food on my head and got it eaten off my head. Everyone was having fun. It was honestly such a tremendous time.
And if you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to be a container for emu food, your prayers have been answered!
To give you an example, pretty much everyone was reacting something like this:
We loved Ostrichland, let me tell you! Pure serotonin right there!
And after we fed all the ostriches, took all the pictures, AND petted the cat, we went into the store for some souvenirs and to see what they had to sell. As one does.
Turns out, they were selling fresh emu eggs. Sloane was like “We have to get one, I’ll help you pay for it.”
I turned to Dylan and was like, “Do we even have the budget for this?!”
We looked at each other, decided that we’d figure out if we had the budget later, and made the executive decision that we had to buy one. The opportunity to buy a fresh emu egg doesn’t come often, and you have to capitalize upon these crazy chances when they come!
And let me tell you, that might’ve been the greatest $30 the Excursion Club has EVER spent.
After a lovely 30 minutes at Ostrichland, we packed ourselves back into our four cars and departed to Vandenburg for the SpaceX launch. It was scheduled for 3 pm, and we pulled into the viewing parking lot at a cool 2:57 pm. Our group likes to live in the danger zone, that’s for sure!
And WHOA, was that SpaceX launch crazy cool! It was the first-ever rocket launch for the entire group, and it was the most awe-inspiring sound I’d ever heard. Like insanely loud, earth-shakingly loud, in the very literal sense of the word. And we were 5 miles away from the actual launch!! It was like PWUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGHHGHHGHHGHHGHHGHGHHGHGHGGHGHHGHGH-level loud.
We unfortunately weren’t able to see the rocket ship itself because it was too foggy, but we heard it, that’s for sure!
We were in great spirits at this point, and were feeling pumped after an action-packed day. To celebrate, Ariv and I ran through a nearby broccoli field:
And from there, we drove to Morro Bay. I fell asleep almost immediately, and woke up when we stopped in San Luis Obispo. We got some food at Food4Less for less, most notably some groceries for banana boats and a few other things, and were back on the road in no time.
It was an awesome drive — the sun was starting to go down, and the mountains around us were stunning. We arrived at Morro Strand State Beach Campground (which was right on the beach, so cool!) and met up with the rest of our group, who had all made it there a while ago already. We set our tents together, rearranged the picnic tables around the campfire, and started cooking dinner!
The highlight of the check-in process, I might add, was when we asked the park ranger if she had any recommendations for cool things the locals do in Morro Bay. She responded, “Have you heard of Morro Rock?” Bruh again! 🤦♀️
When Dylan and I led our trip to Joshua Tree, our dinner was these amazing burritos with some exquisitely cooked rice and beans. Since it worked out so well last time, we decided there was no need to reinvent the wheel and cooked the exact same thing again.
We made our delicious rice once more, using a carrot as a rice-stirring stick (it worked tremendously), and made some delicious tacos with the many tortillas that we brought. This time, we even had guacamole and some salsa, too! Shoutout Food4Less. 💪
And with our precious emu egg that we bought at Ostrichland, we made some super delicious fried rice. Emu egg fried rice! The greatest dinner at an Excursion Club trip!
And just like last time, I might add, we forgot to bring a can opener, so I recruited Simon and Dylan to use a pocket knife to open all the bean cans (again). Story of my life. That’s innovation that excites, right there!
After dinner, we all sat around the campfire for the next few hours, sharing tons of great stories and making smores. We had bought a 30-rack of beers from the world-famous Food4Less (I’m really hyping up this Food4Less for some reason), and were sharing a few around the fire, too. The highlight was when Jason declined one for the purposes of Dry January, and then remarked “Oh wait, it’s February 1st!” before promptly accepting one. We then made some banana boats and played some late-night Blokus, with Vieri securing his first career win!
Overall, it was just such a magical time. I’m so happy that we were all there, and that Dylan and I were able to bring together such great people on the trip. Watching everyone having fun and meeting each other was truly such a joy.
What an amazing first day!
Sunday, February 2nd
The morning started off beautifully — I woke up around 8 am (after a rough night on a deflated sleeping pad), and the scenery was just so stunning. A few other folks were up, too, so we went on a stroll along the beach to wake up.
It was just so beautiful. Morro Rock was right there, miles away along the beach, and it was truly gorgeous. It was the highest resolution morning of my life — everything seemed to be in 100k ultra-HD. I’ve never seen anything like it before, nor since.
Hudson, Caleb, Vieri, Ariv, and I played some volleyball on the beach, walked around some more, and checked out these really cool birds with super skinny legs and beaks. They’re my favorite birds to see at the beach, and one of my favorite birds in general. That’s saying a lot, because I do love birds.
Back at the campsite, we started packing up our tents and moving the tables back to where they were the night before. I called Brooke and my sister, and the highlight of the morning was when I started talking to Aggy about my friend Aryaman, and we were trying to narrow down if the Aryaman he knew was the same one I knew.
Then, this banger question was asked: “Is Aryaman Indian?”
Yes, yes he is! In fact, I’ve never met a non-Indian Aryaman, and am quite looking forward to the day when that happens.
Turns out we didn’t know the same Aryaman, but it was a lovely conversation nonetheless. The entire morning proceeded this way, with so much cheer and mirth all around. Ariv even whipped out some of his poetry, proceeding to awe about half of our group with some impromptu, rap-style recitations. He’s really good at this kind of thing!
At one point, things were going so well that I posted up in a camping chair, and was just observing the beauty of the scenery.
It reminded me of my Boy Scout Scoutmaster Dave, whose often-stated joke goal throughout my entire Scouting career was to have the troop running so well that he could just sit in a lawn chair and watch it all unfold. This was such a well-loved trope in our troop, in fact, that the adults even created and all joined the “lawn chair patrol”.
My Boy Scout troop never did make it to a lawn chair level of proficiency in the outdoors, but let me tell you, our Morro Bay group was nearly there!
Once we packed up our campsite, we all drove over to Morro Rock for a morning of swimming and exploration. Along the way, my car stopped by in town to grab some pastries and coffee at a nearby cafe. I got a HUGE pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant), and somehow the barista completely butchered my name’s spelling. I always go by “LeBron” when asked for my name (I don’t give out my real name just for a laugh), and the barista came up with this spelling:
LABRAN JAMES, anyone?
We all got our coffees quickly, and sat on the terrace outside to enjoy breakfast in the nice morning sun. And within a few moments, an elderly gentleman approached us and asked to sit with us at our table. We of course said yes, and struck up a conversation with him that ended up being quite hilarious.
His name was Ed.
78 years old, Ed was a former park ranger on Alcatraz (the prison island in the San Francisco Bay) and recently retired to Morro Bay. Now, he works in the plumbing section of a hardware store in town, and is the self-proclaimed “greatest plumber in Morro Bay history”.
But he wasn’t just a good plumber — he was “fucking brilliant”. According to him, the plumbing section of that hardware store also employed a career plumber and another guy really good at sales; together, they were almost as good as him.
“Meeting a former Alcatraz park ranger and the greatest plumber in Morro Bay history” was not on my Bingo card, but you gotta take what you get. We proceeded to chat for ~15 minutes, with him hyping up his plumbing section and telling us Morro Bay lore, and us trying not to stare at his amazing eyebrows the entire time. Here’s just a snapshot of our conversation, with his lovely silky voice seducing us over coffee. Wow!
When it was time for us to go, we asked to take some pictures with him, and it turns out that in addition to being the greatest plumber in Morro Bay history, he was also the most technologically adept elderly citizen I've ever met in my entire life.
We took some photos, HE offered to take some 0.5 pictures, and then suggested AirDropping them to my phone. I was just in awe the entire time. This man was 78 years old, and was telling me how to use Bluetooth on my own phone. Wow. Simply wow!
After our Ed excursion, we drove over to Morro Rock, and walked on over to the rocky area on the west side of the rock. There’s a ton of loose rocks there to build rock towers with, and the group was building a ton of them. It reminded me of the backpacking trip that I met Dylan on in January 2024, since we’d built some rock towers together there, too!
It’s crazy how the time flies!
We swam a bit in the ocean, skipped some rocks, and headed back to the cars for the next stop in Montaña de Oro. Along the way, we saw some otters swimming in the bay (so cute!), and I saw some prickly pear cactus growing on the side of the road. I picked some fruit to eat with Ariv, and immediately regretted it.
I very quickly learned that prickly pear cacti have these tiny tiny barbs growing on them that stick to everything imaginable, and I spent the next 4 hours taking these spikes out of my fingers, lips, and tongue.
At the end of the day, though, those tiny spikes were the biggest L I took on the entire trip, which given the types of trips I like to lead, is not a big L at all. Nice!
Back at the cars, we drove to a gas station to fill back up, with me fronting all the transactions to make it easier to get reimbursed by UCLA. I bought so much gas, in fact, that Chase emailed me a warning about potential fraud on my credit card.
In this case, however, the $300 I spent on gas was 100% legit. lol
With gas acquired, we drove on over to the nearby Montaña de Oro State Park, and stopped at the amazing Spooner Cove. One of my first camping trips at UCLA was a Backpacking Club trip to Montaña de Oro SP, and I vividly remember Spooner Cove being my favorite stop on that entire trip — it’s a rocky pebbly beach with great skipping rocks, amazing swimming, and tons of big rocks to climb over the ocean.
Our group ran into the ocean, played some volleyball on the beach, and climbed up onto those massive rocks to dive into the ocean. It was such a fun time. We walked around, explored, got tons of pictures — epic!
Once we dried off, we marched up the hill to the nearby ranch house to explore for a bit. Inside was a museum, with lots of cool artifacts and antiques from when settlers lived there in the early 1900s. The highlight of that experience was these tiny cow figurines hidden everywhere — if you found all of them, you’d get a prize!
Our group NEEDED this prize (we love prizes), so we divided ourselves into a few groups and spread out to search this entire ranch house. Those cows’ hiding places were no match for us, and we found them all in ~10 minutes.
Joe, Bertha, Pontiac, Nell, Mamie… it was too easy!
Armed with our clipboard with the cows’ names, we rushed to the minimum-wage, community college cashier for our prizes. This poor dude seemed a bit scared about our intense eagerness, and quickly presented a large box full of goodies for our enjoyment. It was honestly pretty hilarious, and I love the little wooden top that I got for myself. :)
Excited from our victory and hungry for more, we headed back to the cars for lunch. A few of us climbed some trees nearby, and we proceeded to devour the same exact lunch from yesterday. Yes, Sloane, it was a guy lunch. And yes, Sloane, it was delicious again! (she’s going to be such a good trip lead, I just know it!)
Full of pita bread and hummus, we embarked upon our last little adventure of the trip — a nice half-mile walk along the bluffs. We saw some pelicans. We saw some epic rock formations. Ariv was asking for flirtation tips. There was a blowhole in the ocean. The fog was rolling in. It was just really fun the entire time, and we were all loving it!
Back at the cars, we got back into the circle, and signed the emu egg we hollowed out the night before for dinner. Passing it around, we each shared our favorite memories from the trip.
And after that, we packed up our cars, climbed inside, and drove uneventfully back to Westwood. Just like that, our amazing trip was over!
It’s pretty crazy — chatting with Ariv at the campfire the first night, I realized how crazy it is that on trips like these, folks come together so well, so quickly. For a weekend, we’re family, and nothing else in the world seems to matter.
Aggy, Albee, Anya, Ariv, Caleb, Charlotte, Dylan, Finlay, Hanna, Hela, Hudson, Jason, Lilly, Mikayla, Simon, Sloane, Una, Vieri, Alex — thanks for being such awesome people, and for being like family those two days in Morro Bay. ❤️
Best,
Dennis
Some more pictures:
