Day 20 (7/18) (Lin) We left Los Gatos this morning at 9 am and headed south towards Carmel-by-the-Sea in order to take the coastal route (Rt. 1) to Los Angeles. Our first stop was the 17 Mile Road, which we only did the coastal portion of, and featured beautiful beaches, rocky waterscapes, old and majestic cypress trees, and nice houses, all intertwined amongst the famed Pebble Beach Golf Course. At a few public beaches, the kids loved climbing around on the rocks and (separately) seeing harbor seals playing in the water and sunning themselves on rocks.
From Carmel we headed south through Point Lobos State Reserve and stopped briefly at a beach for the kids to run around a bit. Just south of there, we entered Big Sur more properly, and we were captivated by the stunning rocky vistas that seemed to be around every corner for hours on end. I think we (and Jo especially, who has done the majority of the driving on this trip!) got tired of turns and bends after a while, and we had to limit our stops for photos, since there were so many places to pull off. Seeing (and crossing) the iconic Bixby Bridge was fun, of course.
We decided to try to get off the beaten path just a bit, however, and drove back a narrow one-lane winding road to Pfeiffer Beach, a sprawling beach at the bottom of looming cliffs and with a large rock formation that sort of split the beach. The rock formation had two neat holes/arches in them that the water crashed through. It was windy and surprisingly chilly, but the kids messed around in the sand and in the shallow water for a while. On the road again, we stopped much farther down to see a whole beach of elephant seals sunning themselves. The kids enjoyed their loud, er, belch-like sounds, and the way they jostled each other around. Just north of Santa Barbara we stopped for dinner (In-N-Out, what else?) as we entered hill country and left the coast. We were treated to a soft pink, orange, and purple sunset with an almost full moonrise.
We arrived at our friends’ house—the Kuzmic-Croccos—in Valencia (just north of LA) around 10. A long but fun day. As I told the kids, the journey was part of the destination today.
Fisher Family Travels 