Point Conception Lighthouse

Although we traveled through Greece and Turkey a few months ago, I believe that for Arnon the highlight of 2008, thus far, was our trip in January to Point Conception Lighthouse. It's located in Jalama Bay near Lompoc, California and let me tell you, getting there was a bitch.

It started raining a couple hours into our drive down to Southern California and didn't let up until we got home. By the time we got to the hotel in Lompoc, the storm had caused a power outage, but fortunately we had electricity the next morning.

The hour or so we spent driving to Jalama Bay the next morning was the worst. Most of the drive was on the winding, two-lane coastal highway, but there were several single-lane segments where traffic lights at the northern and southern ends controlled traffic in one direction at a time. Unfortunately, the lights were controlled by small solar panels and were useless in the storm. We took our chances and nothing happened. In fact, I don't remember seeing another car even in the two-lane sections. Then again, who in their right mind would be out there at the edge of civilization during a storm?

Once in Jalama Bay, we were to meet up with a guy from the Coast Guard who would escort us through Cojo Ranch, a private ranch that surrounds the lighthouse. I thought it would just be the three of us plus a few other Coast Guard personnel, but our group was comprised of four retired army/navy people, a guy doing research for Cal Poly-SLO, and us.

Feeling a little out of place, I asked the head Coast Guard guy why he let us come and he said that Arnon had bugged him with so many emails and phone calls over several months that he felt this was the only way to get him off his back. Clearly, annoying behavior pays off.

You can't tell from the photos, but it rained heavily the whole time we were on the lighthouse grounds. Stupidly, I wore a wool coat that day so I was soaked.

The lighthouse was alright, but the rocky bluff the lighthouse sits on is breathtaking. For some unknown reason, a lot of birds fly there to die and their skeletons can be found everywhere. Thus, the native Americans who used to live there considered the land to be sacred. It's nice to know that the environment there will be preserved because of the presence of the lighthouse. Otherwise, it would be part of the large project underway to build coastal condos on Cojo Ranch.