We're back (link to photos in the last paragraph). The trip, again all planned and coordinated by my amazing wife, Deanna, was just wonderful. We packed up the car on Wednesday morning, drove over the Santa Cruz mountains on CA Hwy 84 to the coast and Hwy 1 at San Gregorio. There we turned south and drove down through Santa Cruz, Monterey & Carmel and on to Big Sur. The traffic was extremely light which really helped to make it a great drive.
We arrived at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn and checked in to the "New Room" around 4 PM. The New Room was constructed in the early '40s of salvaged, locally-milled redwood. The walls are paper-thin but the acres of charm crammed into the tiny little room more than made up for that. Later in the evening we drove up the road a bit to Nepenthe for a wonderful dinner under the moon and above the ocean.
After a cozy night's sleep, we got up early Thursday morning and drove to Pfeiffer Beach, which had been closed the last couple of trips down to the area. After a small picnic on the beach, we slow drove down the coast for a couple of hours, just shy of Lucia (another great place to stay). After some sea lion watching, we drove back up for our favorite Big Sur late lunch, smoked salmon paninis (a local guy smokes the salmon and the sandwiches are to die for), at The Caf� Kevah. After paninis, we drove back up to see what the view at Point Sur and the lighthouse was like, before turning back south and heading to watch the sun set at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The park features the beautiful McWay waterfall pouring out onto a secluded beach and several great spots to watch the sun set.
Thursday evening we dined at the charming little Deetjen's Restaurant. The meal was great. After dinner, I headed out for some binocular sky watching. It was a beautiful night, the Andromeda galaxy was hard not to spot with the naked eye and a pleasure to watch with binocs. Later in the evening, the Pleiades rose and I spent a bit watching them and the globular cluster M15. It was dark enough that I also got a decent view of the Pinwheel galaxy, M33. It's really nice getting away from all the light-pollution and into the dark.
This morning, we woke up to the first real rain they've seen in Big Sur in quite a while. We had a very delicious breakfast of stuffed French toast at Deetjen's, packed up our bags and headed north. Just as we pulled out of the park and hit the coast, we found ourselves a few feet in front of the rain and looking out over a beautiful Point Sur. The drive home was almost all blue skies and, with the exception of Monterey and Santa Cruz, the traffic was light and the drive was great fun.
We've spent the last hour or so going through about 500 digital photos that cover a little more than 360 miles of California driving. With some haste, and certainly missing a few nice ones, we pulled about 100 of them for your viewing pleasure. Go to the Big Sur Trip gallery to have a look. This is another quick and dirty iPhoto export but I just know that if I didn't get them up now, it probably wasn't going to happen.
The California coast between Monterey and Lucia is some of the most beautiful driving in the world and we try to do it several times a year. This trip, with a couple of nights at Deetjen's, was a real treat. We feel fortunate to live so close to such beauty. Enjoy the pictures.
