Day 12

Today started with great excitement. Over the past few months of planning this trip, we were absolutely amazed at the ‘out of this world, beautiful views’ along the Pacific Coast Highway that we had seen while online. So today, when taking off after our freebie hotel breakfast (yippee!!), we knew we were in for a real treat. There was a little confusion as to what ‘driving the PCH’ really meant. Should we stick with Hwy 1 or should we be pulling into every little town? Just as we were trying to figure things out, ‘the’ 17 Mile Drive sign popped up and that definitely jogged our memory as the thing to do. That was the entrance to the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course. The homes, the water, the lushness of the greens, all were a perfect start to our drive.

We stopped at Carmel-by-the-Sea for about 30 minutes. What an absolute charming town. We realized that we had 2pm Hearst Castle reservations up the road in San Simeon, and stopping too long would impact the agenda. We snapped pictures left and right and just couldn’t get enough of the breathtaking views all along the coast. We stopped some, here and there but it wasn’t long before Emily and I were feeling a little on the nauseous side. I think there was just so much to take in, that we didn’t want to miss. But, that kind of twisting, turning road requires some sort of ‘eyes on the road’ kind of behavior, and unfortunately we weren’t following that rule. There was added stop and go traffic because there was some construction going on. Needless to say, we ended up missing our 2pm reservation. We resigned ourselves to letting it go, and did a great job of taking it much easier along the drive. Had lunch in Gorda, a small oceanfront town, at a place called Whale Watchers Cafe. There were no whales spotted but, just up the road, to break things up a bit, we saw thousands of beached Elephant Seals. We eventually made our way to our final LA destination of Studio City, feeling much better by our stopping time of 9pm.

A few noteworthy random findings…

The Elliott crew has become the fastest efficient team around, getting in and out of hotel rooms like nobody else around!! Farming is HUGE in CA. We have never seen so many orchards, for so many miles, all over the state. Today it was groves of macadamia, almonds and cashew nuts for miles. Deer seem to be very tame in CA, as we have seen them walking real near the road, and they don’t seem to run off when you are right next to them. Ever since entering CO on day 2, mountains have been in sight, and we are now on day 12 and the Sierra Nevada range is present. Cherie Shedore…thanks for the suggestion of shortbread cookies at the bakery in Carmel. I guess there is a reason that bakery has been in business since 1906! We spotted hundreds of oil pumps in an area called Lost Hills, CA. Never have we seen so many in one spot, ever. Lastly, Sophie has played restaurant in our hotel every night and we have enjoyed her service every night!

That’s all for now…Holllywood, here we come!