Monterey, CA

Before this morning becomes a driving day, we have breakfast at Bagel Bakery, just up the road from the hotel.  We sit and enjoys a coffee/tea and dive into these great egg bagels.

Today we are headed down the scenic 17 Mile Drive.  This starts just south of Monterey and goes through Pebble Beach, along the coast, and down to Carmel.  The drive starts foggy, but its clear enough at each of the many stops we make.  One of the early (and favorite) ones is at Bird Rock.  While seals aplenty swim in the water, their need to get up on this rock island is overpowered by the shear amount of black birds on sunning themselves already.  Also at this stop is some volunteers, offering information and binoculars.  While L & I stayed up high, M & B climbed down to Fanshell Beach for a quick look around.  At Cypress Point we saw a lone white seal.  I'd never seen one that color before.  The next stop was The Lone Cypress.  A top a rocky point sits this single tree.  We got there and got photos,  but 15 minutes later, as we left, there was so much fog you could not see the tree, or the ocean.  We left and headed to Carmel before realizing that we'd been so fixated with the ocean that we had not seen any of world famous Pebble Beach Golf Course.  Maybe on the way back.

Bird Rock, 17 Mile Drive, Pebble Beach, CA

Lone Pine, 17 Mile Drive, Pebble Beach, CA

DML&B, Lone Pine, 17 Mile Drive, Pebble Beach, CA

We drove in hoping to stop at Carmel Beach to look around.  There was too much traffic and literally nowhere to park, so we headed into town to look around.  We spent an hour looking around town and through all the local stores.  WE opted for Brophy Tavern for lunch.  It was a little bit out of the main area of  the town, and the only place without a long wait.  A nice pub lunch before we are back in the car again.

Our trip sees us continue south on the CA1.  We are hoping to get to Big Sur, but the road is not an easy one to navigate.  Between fog rolling in, road works, and the naturally tight one lane each way, it is actually slow going.  A has volunteered to drive, and I know it is taking it out of her, becasue I fell exhausted from the drive in the passenger seat.  

There are a number of places to stop on the way, and we do so.  Garrapata State Park is where we stop the longest.   We walk along a trail out to the cliff's edge.  The coast here is rocky and has many cliffs, not the sandy beaches I've come to know all my life.  And the fog!  So much of it.  Blinding one minute, then clear blue sky the next.  With stops due to roadworks (because of last years landslides) it takes over another hour to finally make it to Big Sur.  We don't arrive until 5pm, so we didn't go into the park.  Both because we had seen all the Redwoods in Santa Cruz and we were a little worried about driving back in the pending darkness.

D&M, Garrapata State Park, CA

B&L, Garrapata State Park, CA

No stops going back north.  That is until we get into the 17 Mile Drive again.  We stop at the clubhouse of the Pebble Beach Golf Course.  While none of us are golfers, you don't have to be to enjoy the beauty and history of this course.  I wish I had taken up the sport when we lived in Vegas.  So many times a knocked back a round.  It would have been amazing to try and play a round here.  Mind you we were heading into dusk as we got here.

Arriving back at the hotel we were too beat to leave it again, so we had dinner at Jack's in the lobby.  Although they were both super tired, the boys ploughed through a huge meal, and it wasn't long after we got back to the room that we surrendered completely for the day.  An absolute beaut!