Today was going to be the magnificent coastal drive. We left beautiful Cambria and headed for the Big
Sur. Before leaving Cambria we stopped
and looked at the Sea Otters and the Sea Lions.
Most people were gathered at the far end of the beach where there were
about 30 of them, but Andy spotted a four of them just lolling on the beach
beneath our car spot. While we watched,
another one worked his way out of the water, up the beach and started “talking”
to his mate, and ended up with his head on her – very cute. Good job we weren’t downwind of them, I
believe they can be very smelly.
The beautiful view
The Big Sur is one long coast road, with the ocean on our
left and the mountains on our right.
Very spectacular and very much like home. There were quite a few vehicles on the road
and lots of people, but Amanda assures me it is nothing like the Great Ocean
Road where there are wall to wall people.
There is a reasonable amount of construction going on, they are updating
a couple of bridges so we had some one way traffic for a while.
Kurt did the majority of the driving again, with
Amanda taking over at the end.
After the Big Sur, we stopped at a little place Los Alitos
(I think) for coffee and I saw a woman knitting. Well, over I went, and asked where the
nearest craft store was. We found it and
I managed to invest in a couple of balls of yarn to continue my blanket. So far, I think I have made about 10
squares. A bit more will be done as we
have another flight in a few days to Seattle. We have found the towns here to be very quaint
and beautiful. There is little evidence
of graffiti and the people are most pleasant. Ironically for a county that is
said to love its coffee, we have found it difficult to get decent Coffee. Of course you can always pick up a good one
at StarBucks but they are not as common here.
The last town we visited before San Francisco was
Carmel. This is the town where Clint
Eastwood used to be the mayor. The local Police vehicles,
A truly
beautiful seaside town, very pricey I am sure.
Went to the bakery, there was an enormous queue. By the time I got served they had run out of “savoury”
things and could only offer sweet stuff.
We then found the Carmel Monastery on the outskirts of
town. This was a beautiful old building,
in the process of being restored. Check
out this amazing nativity scene
And the lovely pipe organ
Andy in the
entrance and a couple of inside photos
This was an amazing crypt in the museum
Because we were there on a Sunday it was free to visit the
museum. The church itself was steeped in
history, and it had an enormous courtyard.
You could almost imagine the cowboys riding in on their horses at the
end of a hard day. Or am I back in Lone Pine mode? 
You could almost imagine the cowboys riding in on their horses at the
end of a hard day. Or am I back in Lone Pine mode? 
The gardens were
quite lovely, a lot of plants are the same as home.
I found this display interesting, the old crockery that has been revealed.
Then of course we saw the stunning little
humming birds. Not quite sure if I
managed to get a picture of them, they wouldn’t stay in one place long enough,
but Amanda and I were standing there and they were buzzing around us, it was
great.
Then it was another long drive to Santa Cruz ... next blog
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