Our New Year's Adventure, Part I

I'm slowly making my way through pictures from our Big Sur - Tahoe trip, and I figured I would break it down into chunks (to make it more easily digestible, of course).

Nick and I set out early on New Year's Eve for Big Sur, budgeting 8 hours for travel, 1 hour for picture-taking, and no hours for traffic. Thankfully, it being New Year's Eve, traffic was not an issue. Whew! We breezed through LA and up the coast to Santa Barbara. On any other day and in any other traffic, we would have avoided the coastal route, but the roads were blissfully empty (well, as empty as LA ever gets) and we made great time. It's also a gorgeous drive!

We had packed sandwiches and decided to take a bit of a breather in Pismo Beach, the last coastal stop along Route 1/Hwy 101 before it heads inland for a while toward San Luis Obispo. We stopped along the cliffs and I whipped out my camera and started shooting.

Here's a view out to the pier, with the retreating waves leaving streaky gorgeousness in the sand:


Looking down the coast, there was a virtual ballet of airplanes and contrails from flights into and out of LAX. The cliffs were pretty, too!


A family appeared just below the cliffs on which we had parked and I thought they created an interesting focal point in the sand.


I had thrown on my circular polarizer and was playing with making "starburst" effects with the sun. It works much better at an angle than it does straight on! So here's another one with that same effect:


After what was probably just a 20 minute detour to Pismo, we continued our drive up the coast and cruised until we hit San Simeon (site of the Hearst Castle). There is a relatively well-known beach in San Simeon that attracts seals of many varieties, the most impressive of which are the elephant seals.

Here's the beach:




And here are the seals. The male elephant seals have this huge probiscus-looking flap over their snouts (hence the name!).


The males use their snouts to "bark" though the sound is quite different than a normal harbor seal's bark. This one is deeper and more trumpet-like. Kind of like ... oh ... an elephant?


We were there right in the middle of birthing season (Dec-Jan), so there were many females and quite a few babies! I loved this little pair:



(Isn't that precious? He posed for the camera!)

These are the cliffs just up the road from the seal beach.




As we continued up the coast toward Big Sur, we could see fog in the distance. Soon we were driving through pea-soup-thick fog. I say "we" were driving through it, but thankfully Nick was the one behind the wheel at that point! Eventually we broke through the low-hanging layer and were perched on the cliffs above the fog with the ocean only barely visible through the white stuff.

Looking back, you can almost see where the road disappears into the fog.


In the distance, you can see the ocean shining through where the fog ends.


Nick and the trusty Prius!


The fog started to break up a mile or so up the road:


And soon we were in beautiful, sunny Big Sur!







(even the wildlife here is content)



We stayed in this beautiful little campground, the Fernwood Resort, where our tent cabins were right along the banks of the Big Sur River.




We met our good friends Kim and Jared (and their doggie Tasha), checked in, and started making introductions with the other 14 people in the large group. The central character and organizer of the New Year Fiesta was Kim's high school friend Ryan. Everyone there was connected to either him or his wife and they were lovely hosts! Ryan even made Santa Maria style Tri-tip for the group one night and it was sooooo good. I'm drooling now just thinking about it!

It was unexpectedly chilly while we were there, with temperatures ranging from low 30's at night to the upper 50's during the day (in the sun, if we were lucky!). The campground was nestled in among old-growth redwoods, which made it stunningly beautiful but also frickin' cold. And for those of you saying "um, that's really not that cold, Southern California Girl" - don't discount how uncomfortable humid cold is. Lemme hear it from my girls in the Pacific Northwest. It's bonechilling! Why do you think the Irish drink so much? They're always cold and damp! Thank goodness I married a pyro -


Here are Kim and Jared huddling around the fire with their cute cute dog:


We rang in the New Year in style, in a huge group in front of Ryan and Wendy's fire, warmed by much alcohol. We also started the New Year with black lung from all of the campfire smoke. *cough cough* damp wood plus humidity *hack* *HACK*

On New Year's Day we all headed down to Pfeiffer State Beach to relax and soak up some sunshine. Just about everyone had dogs, so it was a great chance to let the dogs socialize and run their little hearts out. Tasha and Bessie, Ryan and Wendy's doggie, played great together and had a ball running through those waves.









There was a lot to see other than the dogs - the beach is just so beautiful. Some of the rocks leached a purple color into the sand, but it almost looked like watercolor:


















There was also a garden of rock cairns - the stacks of rocks that are used by hikers and climbers to mark trailheads and paths. The net effect was cool but I just couldn't manage to capture it on camera ... too busy. Here's just one of the many instead.


We ended the day at the famous restaurant and Big Sur institution, Nepenthe, with cocktails and the first sunset of 2009.









So that's how we spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day! I have more pics from Big Sur coming up and eventually I will have pictures from the following week in Tahoe!