Nov 10 - The Big Sur, Hwy 1 Coast, California

  Today was a really long, but amazing day.  We drove Highway 1 north from San Simeon all the way up to Carmel, at the southern end of Monteray Bay.  The road was twisty and curvy, with many spectacular vistas and turn outs.  For much of the 65 miles, the speed limit was 25 - 35 mph.  However, ALL of the twists and turns, with steep drop offs had guard rails or curbs!  After the roads in Yosemite, these were a piece of cake.  Slow, and required concentration, but not so terrifying.
Here are some of the stops we made along the way.

• Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.  This had a fairly short trail out to an overlook on the coast, that looked out at the McWay Falls in a little cove on the ocean.  We walked back and had our picnic lunch, and chatted with a very interesting man from Oregon.  Lots of similar interests as Peter.
• The Mud Creek Landslide area.  Very interesting area where due to the geology there are a lot of landslides.  So the State needed to deal with the area.  One thing they did was to build a beautiful bridge, that covers the road, to keep the rocks and mud from filling up the road.  Unfortunately, we couldn't stop to take a photo of the bridge.
• Pitkins Curve Bridge.  One of two remaining concrete bridges from the 30's era when the original Highway 1 was built.  Beautiful arched bridge across a big canyon.
• Big Creek Bridge
• Bixby Bridge and Castle Rock viewpoint
• Can't remember the name Cove and beach.  This was a delightful vista, that you could then drive down to the beach cove.  The cove was very nice.  There were even two scuba divers going out into the surf, for some unknown reason.  Actually, I asked them why, and they said they were going out to explore the kelp fields.  OK.  This had a stream flowing into the ocean, with a little pool, that was crystal clear.
• Big Sur area.  We were underwhelmed with this area.  Touristy, not much to see.
• Garrapata State Park -- this was a really neat area.  It had trails, with stairs, all along the ridge tops, overlooking the ocean, and even up to the tops of the mountain peaks.  What I really liked, was the colors of the succulent vegetation.  A lot of reds and yellows.  They even had a sign saying "NO Poaching of the Succulent Plants".  This area was very picturesque.  
• Point Lobos Natural Reserve.  This park was great.  It was a very large area, with trails all along the coast.  It had many very interesting rock types and formations.  We really liked this area.  Hiked a bit along the trails.

I was amazed at how many trailheads there were throughout this area.  Usually they went straight up into the mountains, so I was amazed at how many people seem to like to hike up mountains sides.

At this point, we needed to start the way back.  We had thought that we could return on a major highway, a little inland.  However, that turned out to be so much longer, we just headed back down the way we came, with fewer stops at turnouts, along the way.  But we did stop at an amazing turnout, just as the sun was setting.  Even saw a very quick green flash!  Then headed back.

  We were concerned about our battery level in the RV, so headed home for dinner.  When we got there, the battery low beeper was beeping away.  We ran the generator for 45 minutes to charge up the batteries.  But, by midnight, the beeper went off again.  So, we ran the engine (the generators are not allowed to be run after 8 pm) for awhile, enough to stop the beeping.  We turned off everything, including the heat.  By morning, it was chilly.

Big Sur, Highway 1 Coast Scenic Byway photos: