Morro Bay otter place / covid observations ( #0524)

A couple of otters in an evening of lolling around in the bay outside the closed electric generating plant. The story about the generating plant is here, more about the otters later – this picture is really just a placeholder for other thoughts. Barely visible in the background is the coastal collection of fishing boats (sports and commercial) and bayside restaurants, reflective of the area’s economic base in tourism, commercial fishing, and retirement living.

Having been in Morro Bay many times, I knew that its midweek tourism is typically relatively low, and that was true this time as well. The motels in town were nowhere near full, and the tourist-dominated bayside restaurant row was not at all crowded, which was consistent with past experiences and not suggestive of the economic effects of the pandemic restrictions.

BUT, I was surprised by the tourist and locals I did see who had high levels of compliance with pandemic behavioral recommendations. While there wasn’t complete compliance, the majority of people that I saw wandering around in the tourist restaurant-row area were wearing masks except when eating. That contradicts what I see in the resort parts of my hometown where the accepted standard seems to be that you don’t have to wear a mask even when you’re just looking around for a place to eat. And, down in the waterfront park area near where I took this picture, very many were wearing masks even though we were outdoors, and everyone I encountered was very cautious about social distancing.

A disadvantage of Morro Bay for the solo traveler is that there are few diners or chain restaurants that are comfortable eating places for solo travelers – but for a sociologist (me), that created an opportunity to survey what was going on in local grocery stores while shopping for something for dinner. Again I was surprised – I didn’t see any mask cheaters (e.g., worn under the nose), and people were more conscientious about maintain social distancing than I see at home when there are tourist in the stores.

I’ll talk more about this at the end of the trip pictures, but I came back with a sense that infection prevention is more widely practice in Central and Northern California, even outside the major cities, than I had expected.



Picture locations are only approximate, could be off by as much as a mile.