And The ADVENTURE Continues...

Saturday, June 20, 2015

June 18, 2015 Day of relaxing and June 19, 2015 Travel day to Half Moon Bay State Beach

Thursday, June 18- Day of relaxing and lying around

Today we just relaxed in the sun enjoying the view from our campsite. We heard noise coming from the racetrack below us so Jeff, Mike and I went to check it out. Sure enough they were racing street cars and we saw a couple of them wipe out. Nobody got hurt. We ventured up a pretty steep hill and back and then I decided to go to the highest point in the park and succeeded. I estimated it to be about a 3 mile walk with some steep inclines. We got back and some of us took naps. There was nothing on our agenda but that. This was definitely a nothing to do day.

Our campsites

This is how high our climb was that we hiked

We climbed up this hill, down it and up to the green over hill almost in the center

Race track

Friday, June 19- Travel day to Half Moon Bay State Beach and a quick trip to San Francisco

We started out today with a 9am departure to dump tanks and get ready for a short 100 miles to a Camping World and then to Half Moon Bay State Beach. We arrived at the beach around 1pm and got set up and had lunch. Jeff and Amy’s coach is on the beach and ours is across the street but we can still see the ocean. We can’t get much closer than that. We then decided to head in to San Francisco. It was breezy out so we hoped that the fog would be out of the bay and we would get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It worked out as planned and we had a great day viewing the bridge and we could also see Alcatraz.

We then went down to Fisherman’s Wharf and wandered around. We saw the Sea Lions at pier 39 and stopped by Boudin Sourdough French Bread Bakery. This bakery’s bread was created in 1849. It is a blend of French bread and tangy sour dough used by the gold rush 49er’s. We picked up a few loaves of bread and were not disappointed. We attempted to go to Chinatown and have a meal but the traffic was terrible and we could not find a parking spot so we headed back to the campground and had Chinese for dinner, had some Port and enjoyed our first sunset in this area. What a day.

Lake going into Half Moon Bay

Another shot of the lake

Beach from our site at Half Moon Bay

Golden Gate Bridge

Three Sailed Ship

Wind Surfer

Alcatraz

French Sour Dough at Boudin's Bakery

Lighthouse at Pier 39

Sea Lions at Pier 39

Nice Sculpture

Just a nice shot with the mountains in the background

Tunnel ahead

Nice tunnel with plenty of room on either side

Our beautiful sunset at Half Moon Bay

Thursday, June 18, 2015

June 16, 2015 Santa Cruz and June 17, 2015 Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and Big Sur Coastline

Tuesday, June 16- Washing cars and a day trip to Santa Cruz

We have not washed our cars since we met up with Jeff and Amy almost a month ago and they really need it. They weren’t bad until we hit the southwest and now they are really bad. Mike and Jeff took off and the girls had some time to themselves. It took the boys 2 hours to make it make to the campground with clean vehicles. We packed our lunches and we were off to see Santa Cruz. We saw a couple of natural bridges, the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse and Surfing Museum, walked through the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Amy and Jeff suggested I try the fried Oreos. I am not one for sweets but it was pretty darn good. We then took a stroll down the pier and watched some California fur seals. At the end of the pier was a concrete ship that looked like it was home to a lot of Cormorants. What a nice way to spend an afternoon. Each one of our day trips up or down the Pacific Coast we have seen different treasures both in animals, flowers and trees or just natural beauty. Each place has its own uniqueness.

One of the natural bridges along the way

I call this one The Sphinx Rock

Another natural bridge

Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse & Surfer's Museum

NIce flowers on the bluff

Fur seal

Boardwalk

Cement ship at the end of the pier

The Pier at Seacliff State Park

Wednesday, June 17- Trip down CA-1 and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Mike was up early and the fog or mist was so thick that you couldn’t even see the mountain in front of us. But in a few hours it started to burn off and we were off at 9am. Our main destination was to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park which was about 60-70 miles away. We planned on stopping along the way to take pictures and just take it the views. We gauged that the trip one way was going to take us 3 hours and then a short 1 ½ hour ride home. Well we did just that. One of our first stops was at Garrapata State Park where we walked down to the beach. It was pretty cold somewhere in the 50’s. We stopped at the Rocky Creek Bridge and the Bixby Creek Bridge both were built in 1932. I guess we stopped maybe 10 different places to get pictures of the water and water crashing over the rocks. We even found another natural bridge and Point Sur Lighthouse. We finally made it to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and walked to see the only waterfall that falls directly into the ocean. It was peaceful and beautiful. This park was packed. We had lunch and was joined by 3 blue jays that I thought were beautiful. As you can see I really love wildlife. I did feed them a cherry and a few sunflower seeds. We all admitted that we haven’t gotten tired of looking at this amazing coastline.

Wonder whose house this is tucked into the trees in Carmel

Ocean view

Look at the strength of the surf

Jeff is finally taller than Mike

Amy from above us

We found another natural bridge along the way

Big Sur Coastline

Rocky Creek Bridge

Bixby Creek Bridge--looks a little different from Rocky Creek

Jeff & Amy

Check out this rock

Another coastline shot

Point Sur Lighthouse in the mist

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park WaterfallWaterfall

This is a picture of the whole cove where the waterfall is

The Gang

My lunch buddy the bluejay

This is a glimpse of CA-1

June 15, 2015 Laguna Seca Recreation Area, Monterey and 17 mile Drive

Monday June 15- Travel day to Laguna Seca Recreation Area and a tour of Monterey and The 17-Mile Drive.

We took our time getting ready to leave this morning and left the campground around 9am. We only had a 3 hour drive so we were not in a big rush. We stopped for fuel and then ran into a detour which almost got us in trouble since we were towing our cars. But we finally got turned around and arrived at the park about 1pm. There were not clear signage showing which way to get to the campgrounds and there were 2 roads. Yep we took the long way and there was a 17% climb to get to the top of the park. We did finally find the campground and our sites and got set up. There is a Grand Prix track here run by Mazda but today there were motorcycles using the track and they were going fast.

After we got set up and had lunch we decided to do the 17 mile drive. This also included the towns of Monterey, Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach. We were driving toward a lighthouse for Pat when we saw that the small town of Pacific Grove was having their weekly Farmer’s Market. It had organic fruits and vegetables so we walked around and even purchases a few items. We then strolled down small streets to get to the Bay. The houses were charming and they had some different plants and flowers. We then walked down to the waterfront and had a great view of Monterey Bay. We later found out that the name of the lighthouse was Point Pinos.

We finally found the lighthouse and then started on the 17-Mile Drive which is a private drive through Pebble Beach. It cost $10 but it was worth it. We had tremendous views of the ocean, million dollar homes and of course the famous Pebble Beach golf course. We also passed the area that John Denver’s plane had gone down back in October 1997. There is a plaque remembering him. We returned to the campground ate leftovers and called it a day. I think I need another rest day already.