Day 14: Monterey Area

 June 25, 2024   Mileage   Start:  26822   End:  26938   Total:  Day/Trip  116/4233

A nice, lazy morning, then on the road about 10:30 to the "17 Mile Drive", a toll road that tours the Monterey Peninsula - rocky shorelines, cool trees, golf courses (Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and more), beautiful properties - an amazing tour. We finished the drive about 2:30 and headed south along the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at various pullouts and making it as far south as the Bixby Bridge, a famous landmark. Unfortunately, the PCH is only open another 8-10 miles south of there, then closed due to a slide. Rocky shorelines, intermittent sandy beaches, fields of wildflowers, gnarled, big, and old trees, mule deer, sea lions, otters...we saw a lot. Unfortunately, the wildlife was far enough away we couldn't get a good picture (see that dot? No, THAT dot. That's a sea lion!). But...got a lot of good pics anyway.




Decided to put the 2 "money shots" together, 2 photo icons from the area - the Lone Cypress (Pebble Beach logo) and the Bixby Bridge.



Finally, in a late minute addition to the schedule, we went to dinner at the Mission Ranch, Clint Eastwood's spread in Carmel-by-the-Sea. It's a resort/ranch that overlooks the Pacific. Very tasty, fun experience, though we chose to eat inside as it was 58 degrees.

And this is another shot with the restaurant in the distance and one of those cool, old trees I've talked about.

On to Ventura...

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