The Pacific Coast Highway

We left San Diego and head north in our awesome Ford Mustang Convertible. I seriously want one now. The first day’s drive was to San Luis Obispo. The views were pretty blah and traffic was ridiculous. I think we would have been better off going the 405 through LA since there really wasn’t much to see on Hwy 1 and it took us over 2 hours to get through the LA area. It really was a bust. I don’t get all the hype about Malibu, it really wasn’t that special. The special places were up the coast. So the first day was not that exciting.

Elephant Seals

About an hour up the road from San Luis Obispo is the elephant seal rookery. There is this one pull off which is free (if you can believe that in California, somebody could make a fortune off of this stop) and it is home to hundreds of Elephant Seals. They are so dang cute. There were some fighting: 

But mostly they were swimming or the majority were sleeping:

 It is definitely worth a stop if you are driving up the PCH.

Big Sur

Just before Big Sur is the Julia Pfeiffer State Park. Stop, it is beautiful.  There is a short trail, about ¼ mile that is almost entirely flat and the view at the end is amazing. There is a waterfall, a small one, and the water on the beach is the most turquoise water I’ve ever seen:

After you see the water fall, continue to the end of the trail and check out the coast on the other side. Breathtaking!

Also up the road is the Bixby Bridge. I’m not sure what is so special about this bridge, other than it is cool but I is also much photographed and one of my atlas has this bridge as the front cover.

The road twists and turns its way to Monterey (I rhymed there!) with many places to stop and look. I have to say of the portion of the highway we covered the road from Cambria to Monterey is the best. Once past Monterey, the road is very straight and the view is much the same as down south but not as exciting.