To enter this State Park with a car costs $10.A road goes up three hundred feet in 0.8 miles to a parking lot where there is a pueblo-style lodge which, somehow, we missed photographing. It used to be a restaurant when it was built in 1923; now it's a visitor's center.
Fitness-minded Californians walk, jog and cycle up this hill, even in this kind of heat. By the time they get to the top they're sweating buckets and maybe are too exhausted to enjoy the awesome view of the area we'd just come from. The salt marsh down there is a protected area as well.
It's dry country (but not like inland desert because this area gets fog) with cactus, pines of course, interesting sandstone formations, and trails winding around all over. I would have liked to have hiked there for a couple of hours.
I'm glad I didn't read until later that the park has "a small population" of Southern Pacific rattlesnakes. We only saw this lizard.
It's late afternoon as we drive back down the hill and leave the park.
