Monterey Bay - Big Sur, CA

The ride to the aquarium was beautiful. The bay was bigger than I remember, having come through here in 2002. Sands dunes for miles and fields of artichokes & cabbage lined the farms, the smell of the cabbage could detox anyone! The Aquarium was a great break from everything, camp life & homeschool, I would Kingston this was a field trip for him, remember what you learn cause I'll have you write about it tomorrow!

We met up with Grady and his family in the Deep Ocean tunnel. We viewed a beautiful school of sardines- all swimming in constant motion and uniformity, I took a couple videos of this as I could sit and meditate to this graceful flow for days. There were hammerheads turtles, sharks, it was pretty amazing. We chatted with our friends for a bit and went our separate ways. 

Following the aquarium, we set out for a bite to eat at the Cannery Row in Monterey. There were shops, restaurants, and the skateboard shop. We bought Kingston his early birthday present, a Santa Cruz original, lucky kid!

We headed south on HW1. We were set on seeing the mother of all, Big Sur! The Bixby bridge was built in 1932, the sunset made the lighting all weird and yellow which made the photos appear to have a vintage filter. We stopped at the outlook and viewed for a while. We made it to our camp site at Riverside Campground around 8pm. We were prepared to have no cell service and no internet, but we did have a couple bars of cell, but WiFi wasn't good at all, not even enough to watch Netflix. It was fine, it gave me a chance to catch up on this blog and get more into the book I started reading. 

The next morning we caught up on work & school. Math and reading mainly, K wasn't into it today, feeling sluggish and tired so he did what he could and we decided to go on a 3 mile hike to a waterfall. Pfeiffer Beach State Park. We rode the e-bikes down HW1, again sandwiching him in between us and making him wear his bright yellow shorts. We only had to ride for a mile and a half so it wasn't too long, just makes me nervous bike riding on a 3 ft bike lane on a highway. We've seen so many cyclists riding on the side of HW1, it must be a bucket list for some of them. For us, we sure were glad we have the power assist throttle (aka the "easy button"). The hike was super uphill and tons of stairs, definitely got our share of exercise today and my thighs were burning. The waterfall was cool and refreshing, but too far to go out and stand in. We headed back down and stopped in the Big Sur Lodge, about the best smelling lodge I've smelled (better than the Salish lodge & spa). Bought some stickers and a new trucker hat for myself at the gift shop. Made it back to camp, grilled burgers and black beans of course for the boy.

The Big Sur campsite was great. We were right on the river and K found a fun rope to swing over the river. This place had the cutest camp store, and a couple quirky ladies that loved cats! We were totally out of cat food and Pam, the office manger, insisted she bring us some in the morning. Thanks Pam! As we headed out that morning we stopped at the ranger station so Kingston could get his book NP book stamped.