Pismo SB
This day was another like yesterday except most of the activity was around the Companion Ship. We had a list of things to do, mostly little tweaks to the trailer itself such as greasing the stabilizing jacks, adjusting the H2O heater pilot, straightening the stair step support, backing up the computer, etc. Penny matted and framed her pencil drawing of the grand daughters and constructed a mailing box for it. Off to the post office we went, then stopped at the north park to dump our waste water, and stopped to see the Monarch Butterfly clusters in another section of PSB.
Believe It or not these butterflies travel from as far away a Canada flying 100-200 miles per day at 10,000 foot altitudes to winter over in the eucalyptus and cypress trees of this area. Not all groves, select ones are repeatedly chosen for their winter homes. These monarchs have not been here before; they are four generations removed from the previous visitors. The spring and summer generations may live 2 to 6 weeks; the migrating generation can live up to 8 months. Remember, they start as eggs, become larva, then pupa before becoming an adult. And, they do not travel in a mass migration! Whoever coded that DNA was a genius!
It is phenomenal to see thousands of them clustered together in groups; they could be easily mistaken for leaves. A closer look reveals them and they form a mosaic of color quite extraordinary; the underside of their wings are white. Another phantasmagorically wonderful creation threatened by extinction; recent counts show a 90% drop from counts done 25 years ago! Sad!
Penny went for a walk with a woman we met when we first arrived, Katheryn. She is from Illinois, not far from where I grew up. She is traveling alone but has six pet rabbits with her in her RV. They went for a long walk on the beach and watched the sunset. Katheryn will be moving to another campground tomorrow, but this marks one of the few times we have met folks on the road and exchanged contact information. This is good, to reach out to our fellow travelers. Mike and Eileen, who we met last year in Mississippi still communicate with us.