[Day 3:The day where we drive, drive, drive]

The day begins with us bidding farewell to Watsonville’s strawberries, sand dollars, and foggy dunes. And of course, our little beach side home.

We decide to stop in Carmel for lunch. We dutifully follow the signs directing us to beach parking and find ourselves considerably uphill from the actual shoreline. Cute little homes line our beach bound path. When we reach the ocean it’s the foggiest piece of coast yet, giving us the strange illusion we are in a small, relatively little known beach. Sans blanket we are forced to practice our balancing skills to keep our food as sand free as possible. But the more immediate danger are the birds lurking behind us, waiting to swoop for scraps as soon as our backs are turned.

Then we take to the coastal highway.

It does not disappoint.

We wind along, new cliffs and shoreline emerging around every corner, each view perfectly packaged with blue skies and just a touch of mist. Every shoulder and stopping point is full of tourists attempting to take that perfect picture.

Our first stop is McWay falls. It’s a secluded beach that derives its name from the small waterfall running through its center.

No one can actually go on the beach ( hence the secluded feel despite the cars lined up along the highway full of people looking for the entrance). Everyone admired a view from a walk way nearby that looks down. We meet a couple people from exotic locations along the way.

We keep driving until we are in the heart of the Big Sur. It had been my plan to bring Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur and read it for the first time at the Big Sur, but I didn’t have time to make this happen. So instead I’ll content myself with reading it after as a way to let the trip live on. For our next stop we had planned to stop at Pfeiffer Beach, but we were turned away (due to full parking!) and decided to try Point Lobos instead.

Here we befriend a park ranger who joined us as we watched some harbor seals (Some of these seals actually turned out to be divers, haha), hiked around a little bit, and discovered a haunted whale graveyard.

Sort of. If you count national park endorsed educational exhibits of whale bones as graveyards.

We bid farewell to the Big Sur and went to Monterey for dinner. The Monterey wharf was small, but cute. The place where we had dinner had a tradition where they give roses to everyone after their meal.

The rest goes by in a big blur. We drive back to Oakland, along the way we pass through GarlicVille (Fake name, real place), and listen to every song we have with California in the title. It’s the late hours of the night by the time we turn in our rental car and head to the hotel.

The next morning we sadly board our plane, click our heels, and head home sweet home.

It all went by too fast, yet just right.

Thanks for indulging me. It’s back to me weird, normal little life posts.

Currently: baking chocolate chip cookies