After viewing all the photos I took on Dear and my getaway last Sunday and Monday, it’s hard to believe we saw so much in such a short time! This is your only warning…I’m posting a lot of photos here! I will be sharing my photos from the Butterfly Grove next Tuesday.

After we spent some time at the Butterfly Grove we zipped over to the sleepy little town of Arroyo Grande which is inland from Pismo Beach. We wanted to do a little antiquing. Since it was Sunday some shops were closed but we got an eye full in two filled to the brim antique stores. There’s a suspension bridge over the river that was fun to cross. Brought out the kid in us!

These guys were making quite a racket and decided they needed to peck at our tennies! The red head decided to peck at Dear’s leg, too.

Pismo Beach is known for their clams and the clam symbol is used freely all over town. It was one of our goals to have a bowl of clam chowder at Splash Cafe before we left town! When we saw the line at Splash on Sunday we settled for good barbecue at Mo’s instead and hoped to get into Splash on Monday! Mo does not do Clam Chowda!

 The Pismo Clam

The Pismo Clam is one of the largest types of clams found along the California Coast. The clams can grow up to seven inches, if not interfered with by hungry clammers and sea otters. Legal size is 4 1/2 inches in diameter; and the proper place to clam is south of Grand Avenue (south of Pismo Beach).  Clams take approximately five years to reach legal size; growing about 3/4 of an inch each year. As clams approach ten years of age, they seldom grow more than 1/8 of an inch per year. The largest living Pismo Clam on record is 7 3/8 inches, however the clam shell on display in the Pismo Beach Chamber of Commerce is 8 inches in diameter.

See the line going out the door and around the corner? No worries…on Monday we headed back to Splash and had a bowl of very good chowder for brunch before the crowds arrived!

Our room would not be ready for us till 3:30 so we headed up the coast a bit to Shell beach and boy what a treat it was!

Beauty overload at it’s best!

We headed back to Pismo to check in but before we did we took a walk on the pier…

These two pelicans made my day while they posed for me and my camera! Actually they were hoping to steal the fish that a fisherman had just caught from the pier. It was funny to watch! We checked in, had a wonderful Swedish massage, (after standing and walking all day it felt so good) and then we had a great meal at the hotel restaurant with views of the beach.

On Monday morning after our picnic breakfast that was delivered to our room we headed north to Avila beach for an early morning walk.

Besides walking out on the pier, we found this biking/walking trail along the river and golf course that we explored.

We really enjoyed our getaway and would highly recommend this part of the California coast to anyone. If you are wine lovers there are also several wineries that do tastings in this area.

ht: photo of Pismo Clam R.Perry/UCLA Globe

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.