California’s Central Coast, a 200-mile stretch of shore between Santa Barbara and Big Sur, is one of the Golden State’s quieter hidden gems. Among the region’s must-visits is Morro Bay, a town of about 11,000 people that’s home to calm waters for kayaking, seals and sea otters, seafood shacks, and the eye-catching Morro Rock. The town also hosts what was once a massive power plant and its three towering stacks, which PG&E built in the 1950s.
For the vast majority of visitors to Morro Bay, which along with much of San Luis Obispo County ranks as a popular day and weekend trip for those seeking to escape the San Joaquin Valley’s scorching summer heat, the three 450-foot stacks elicit the thought, “Who thought it was a good idea to put this here?” Like most visitors, infrequent or (as with myself) quite frequent, the stacks are something not to post about on Instagram — I…