A Little Time Away

Since having such a long Winter, Todd kept telling me how much he just wanted to "get away" with me somewhere when he could finally leave town.  So we started looking at different vacation destinations and for 3 weeks we looked and looked and never could really come up with any place we felt good about.  We thought about going to California, but personally I don't love California.  Southern is too busy and doesn't do anything for me since I've been there so often.  Northern is pretty, but we've been there, too, quite a few times and there just isn't anywhere I want to see!  Finally I got the idea about Monterey!  I've never been there and I've always wanted to take highway 1 along the coast.  

 So we flew to Oakland and rented a car.  The fun part was we got upgraded to a Mercedes and were feeling like we were driving in style!  We had such a great morning driving down the coast and stopping along the way to take pictures and taking our time getting to Monterey.

 These are just some photos we took as we made our way.  It was so picturesque. I love these little pink flowers along the coast line.

 I loved this lighthouse and this field of yellow flowers  in the foreground.

 We stopped and got strawberries dipped in chocolate and some berry pie at this berry farm.  It was nice being on our own timeline and not in any hurry to be anywhere.

 These were some ground cover flowers right on the coastline.  I could see them all along the walkway that went right next to the coastline right in Monterey.  I couldn't resist taking pictures because it was so pretty.

 Of course the seagulls were everywhere and I couldn't resist a few pictures of them either.

 The second day we took 17 mile drive along Pebble Beach and the coastline.  We drove along and enjoyed the view.  It was a bit windy, but the sun was shining and we had fun just driving around.

 We went all the way to Carmel.  We found an old mission and stopped and walked around, but we didn't want to pay to walk in, so we just  peeked in the gate and I snapped a few pictures.

 We also drove through a National wildlife area and saw a bunch of seals sunning on the rocks.  It was pup season and so there were mama seals laying on the rocks nursing their pups.  We also saw sea otters with their babies, as well.  So cute!  I didn't get any close ups of these because even with the zoom on my camera it was still hard to see.  But we could hear them.

Aren't these pics so pretty?  California has redeemed itself in my book.  I'd go back in a heartbeat!  What a great time we had being alone together.