Beautiful ocean drive, seals and ice cream! - 2/10/2011





Today started with beautiful pictures of the sunrise in Monterey and the picture taking of beautiful scenery didn't stop for the rest of the trip down the pacific coast highway.  We saw trees, mountains, clouds, bridges, rocks and lots and lots of ocean.  I would definitely recommend checking out our pictures of day eight, though you may have to wade a bit in the large mass of pictures.  Random notes:
1 - There were a number of tiny lots off the side of the highway for people to stop and take pictures and/or enjoy the view.  Stopping every 20 minutes or so, we ended up seeing a lot of the same people over and over.  One guy in particular ( with a french accent) we must have seen at least 10 times.

2 - At one point there was an official turn off spot and we decided to take it at the last minute.  It was a bit confusing as the view was not all that great.  Then we realized that this was where you could see elephant seals and they were so much fun to watch!  They covered the beach for miles and we actually have videos of their loud barks and their amusing ways of moving and tossing sand on their backs.  Side note: this was the last time we saw the guy from France.

3 - Towards the end, distracted by all of the fun pictures, we almost ran out of gas and had to pay $4.79.  That stunk.

Around dinnertime we stopped in Santa Barbara, feeling rather fatigued from all of the getting in and out of the car.  First up was food, a delicious salad followed by rather large, amazing $2 yogurt.  The receipt from the salad had the yogurt coupon and so we were pretty excited.  After eating them we had a bunch more energy and set off to explore.  We found a really neat building which ended up being city hall.  They were redoing the front and cutting the stone for the sculptures.  It was pretty amazing to watch.  We then stopped at the library before heading down to the wharf.  After a few fun pictures there we jumped back on the road and headed to my cousin's in LA.  We were able to chat with Jed and Lesley for a bit before heading to sleep on our transformer and leopard print sheets.  Thank you to my first cousins once removed (Sage and Damian)!