Breathtaking Beauty

Our trip the last two days has covered some of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen.  We spent Saturday morning exploring Morro Bay.  The Morro Rock sits out in the Pacific.  We hiked around the area and down to the beach.  I had hoped to see surfers while here and there were many of them venturing into the water this morning.  What surprised me was that all the surfers I saw were old.  About my age.  Not the picture I had of California surfers.


  We have been traveling up the California Pacific Coast on Highway 1 that winds up and down through mountains and running right next to the Pacific Ocean.  Yesterday's travel was through most areas with very little commercial development but many turn-outs to watch the ocean.

We also stopped at Hearst Castle which was the home of William Randolph Hearst and is now a California State Park.  We spent several hours there and there is no way to adequately describe the beauty of the place.  This picture is taken from the road that approaches the home.


The Hearst Castle has a main home, shown here, and three guest houses.



The home is designed to look like a 14th century Mediterranean village.  This pool looks like a Roman ruin.


The next few pictures were taken as we traveled north.




We were able to watch elephant seals sunning themselves on the beach.  There were scores of them lying up and down the rocky shore. 



We arrived in Santa Cruz last night.  After we made plans with Tom's cousin, Kathy, we settled in our motel, did our laundry and relaxed.

This morning we arrived at Kathy and Phil's home and were treated to a wonderful brunch of homemade pineapple upside down coffee cake and coffee.

We then toured around the area and again loved the Pacific Ocean.  We had quite a rain storm today so we got to see huge waves and again some surfers.  We had lunch on the Santa Cruz wharf and enjoyed great seafood.

Kathy and Phil own Sprockets, a bicycle shop that I will tell you more about later.  We stopped by and picked up Kathy's mom, Aunt Viv.  Viv is Tom's mom's sister and she has lived here for 25 years.


We returned to Phil and Kathy's for a great dinner and time relaxing.  We're meeting up with them tomorrow to watch the Tour of California bike race that will be passing their store.  We hope to see Lance Armstrong.



Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 16, 2009 at 4:40 PM

    Brenda, the guys you saw surfing who are my age, THEY are the REAL surfers! We go WAY back to the good old days!

    By the way, my dad has cousins named Kathy and Phil too!

    Great pictures. Glad you're enjoying your time out here!

    ReplyDelete

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