..I know, we've seen a lot. And I know I'm an extremist, but the fact that my wife isn't and said that it's some of the most beautiful things she's ever seen says a lot about this part of the world. I hope we captured it just a little bit...
We thought Big Sur was a town... which it kind of is, but mostly, it's a conglomeration of state parks, about 40 to 50 miles long, but if you do it right - about 8 hours
The day started of a bit cloudy, but it cleared up later on
This is one of the creeks that ran through one of the state parks
This is Pfeiffer Beach State Park. We stopped to get in some beach time.
While there, we found this little fella... a harbor seal just beaching it up for the day
We tried to pose for some pictures and we got this one... Nell's hair getting blown by the wind = a handlebar mustache for me.
My beauty.
I feel like I should preface the next few pictures. They were taken at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, specifically at McWay Cove. This is one of the most beautiful setups either one of us has seen. A cove, a waterfall, caribbean-blue water... just incredible.
We stared at it for a while, then finally decided we have to move on...
I'm not sure what we expected the PCH to be, but... it exceeded all expectations.
Beautiful woman
What's that squirrel looking at?
At the end of the state parks was a beach front with Elephant Seals. Neither one of us knew they even existed... but check out their noses...
Crazy, eh?
A pair trying to intimidate one another
Hearst Castel. We didn't get a chance to go in because it was so late, but we saw pictures of it... and it's pretty fascinating. Maybe next time.
Toward then end of our PCH drive, we finished it off watching the sunset over the ocean..
.
After Highway 1, we then headed down to Santa Barbara for a few days where we shopped and rode around the beach front on our bikes.
They call this Arlington West. There are 3,000 crosses here that pay tribute to all of the soldiers who've lost their lives in Iraq. It was pretty surreal.
We watched some sail boats for a while. I watched them with envy, hoping one day I might be able to do something like that. It's pretty fun to watch.
This guy was just hanging around Stearns Wharf there in Santa Barbara
We also saw a skate boarding park where we watched them in action for a while.
There were about 4 beach side weddings going on Sunday afternoon as we took a ride on our bikes.
We also went to UC-Santa Barbara. They have a pretty cool setup right there on the ocean.
Here's Nellie standing in for Laurel as an honorary alumni of UCSB. This was her first choice of school until she found out how much it costs. UCA will have to do...go bears.
After Santa Barbara, we headed to Ojai, CA in honor of Dennis Collins who grew up here.
It was a great little town with orange and avocado groves as far as the eye could see.(This is at Friends Ranch, but we didn't get any of their world famous freshly squeezed orange juice because they were closed that day.)
A HUGE eucalyptus tree.
This is downtown Ojai at a park where we walked around for a while
We went for a drive up Gridley Road where the Collins fam used to live. This was the view from the top of the hill. Beautiful.
And Nell doing a little orange picking...
Here is the road that Dennis grew up on. We didn't know what house it was, so we took a picture or this one just in case it was it :)
For dinner, we went and checked out Boccali's, a local Italian restaurant that Dennis suggested. It was SO good. They grow their own vegetables and use that in the dishes that they prepare. And talk about amazing strawberry shortcake...they've got it there!We absolutely loved Ojai. It was a beautiful, quaint town with such friendly people. All of the locals we talked to were very welcoming. Thanks, Dennis and Linda, for being our tour guide in Ojai! We enjoyed it!
After that... we headed to Ventura County.. just north of LA, where we stayed with Rex and Sherry Holt and got in some great beach time.
Sherry gave a pretty cool stop on our way to their house from Ojai. Grant Park is a huge hill located right off the highway and close to the beach so you can see forever (See above). Apparently, back in 1782, a Catholic priest who had started a lot of the missions there in Southern California planted a cross on the top of the hill (see below). They replaced the cross in 1912, but it's still pretty cool that it over looks the city and how beautiful the view is.
Also atop Grant Park.
We also spent a couple of days at the beach where we got good sun and I played in the water.Rex took us to Skidrow where he works there with the poor. We went with him and another Baptist pastor to spent the evening
It was a pretty nice facility
The men before their service started (which they have different services for men and women).
Rex kicking off the service
This is Rev. Sherwood Haisty, a local southern baptist pastor from Filmore who preached that night.
This is Tracy, a tenant of the mission. He requested to sing a song that he and his brother in law wrote called "Jesus is Awesome." Let's just say... it was awesome.
This is the women's side. We met some very resilent women and also heard some very hard stories. We were really glad we got just a great experience while in LA.
The LA skyline from the mission. We loved the California sunsets.
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