Heading Back

Everytime we go on a road trip I have to peek at one of my fav sites -  roadsideamerica.com  - in which  lists many unusual sights in each state.

Seeing a fish shaped house in Berkley was deff on my to-do list since we were in that neck of the woods. 

I mean how could I not go see such randomness right?! :)

...and how could you not make a fish face in front of a fish house ;)

then it was time to be..
..."On the road again"
(I sing that chorus like every time we begin a road trip. ;) )

Our first stop was Santa Cruz- another place that we wanted to show the kids because its in movies and shows, and of course thats always cool to know and say you've been places you see on the tele
We walked the boardwalk,

  picked one ride to ride as a family,
  (while we waited in line this was our pretty lil view.)

 and dipped our toes in the sand real quick

before we went to lunch
 and heading out...

...n I tell yuh, we were having  a hard time leaving this to head back to the desert :(

Our next stop was Monterey, to a park I wanted to see called Lovers Point

Here we walked on the rocks,

(and my hand got chewed up as I lost my balance trying to get this shot :( )

Aspen found a beggar,

 we saw tons more Hermit crabs,

and dipped our toes in real quick.

Next, between here and Carmel is this extra slice of coast called the 17 mile drive that you have to pay to go see. Since we were right there and it had rave reviews, and who knows if we ever would be that way again, we decided what the hey. Honestly, it was just more coast line, and though always nice to see, there was nothing crazy, extra special about it.
On it were a few fun sights...

like the most photographed tree I read,

and this dedicated fisherman,

and this cute lil boy watching the waves crash. ;)

After the seventeen mile drive the road took is inward to farm land,

where we couldn't help but make a random pit stop to get some fresh goods.

Then the road led us back out the ocean,

to the Big Sur,
which is miles upon miles of this.


Beautiful sure,
but in reality its miles if twisting n turning, white knuckle cliff driving and theres no way out forever.  :s
After about 20 min of it we were done, we'd seen enough coast,
but turning around when you need to go the way you are going isn't quite an option.
Our after thought, one of those things to do once n never again.

It struck sunset near the later part of the drive, and
in that moment I kinda got all the talk about it: seeing the sun disappear as a bright red fire ball on what looks like the earths edge- there's something kind of special about it.
Those pictures will be next ; )



Can you believe we did n saw all this in just one day?! Kinda crazy. We still drove for about three more hours after this in the dark.
If we would have just taken the freeway we would have been almost home. : o
The point of it though was to soak up as much non desert as we could, and Im glad we did.


Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed. ;)
and come back to see the sunset....