Dan and I have not been on an adults only vacation since we had our kiddos. A grown up getaway was long overdue! :) We were so excited to plan a trip to California this summer and so fortunate that our children have awesome grandparents who agreed to babysit while Mom and Dad were out of town! We started planning our itinerary over a year ago. Daniel had a wildlife conference in Monterrey a few years ago and he always knew that he wanted to return to the area to explore Big Sur Coast. I had been to San Francisco area a handful of times for work and, two years ago, Roman and I headed West to SanFran on vacation to see our dear friends Dimitris, Laura, and Marina. Our trip included camping in the Redwoods, time at the spectacular Aquarium in Monterrey, many wildlife sightings, camping at state beaches down the beautiful Big Sur Coast, and we ended our journey in San Francisco where we enjoyed time with friends, visited Google, Chinatown, and crossed the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. It was incredible!
Here we are at the airport, getting ready to fly out. We departed from Rhinelander - we went through security and chatted with the TSA agent who is part of Dan's fantasy football league. There is only one gate at the airport and, of course, we saw someone else that we knew who was also on our quick flight to Minneapolis. Gotta love small towns! Haha!
We arrived in San Francisco around lunch time on Sunday. After getting our rental car we ran errands with stops at REI, the grocery store, buying ice, etc. You better believe that one of our first stops in the city was at a hole in the wall restaurant for ethnic food! We had some delicious pork dumplings. Wow! We definitely weren't in Rhinelander anymore. :)
Our first stop was at Big Basin state park, not far from Santa Cruz. This park was filled with majestic Redwoods. It was beautiful!
After we settled in to our campsite, we went on a hike. Look at how huge these trees are!
Here is a small waterfall that we saw on our hike.
Had to share this - we got some wine in a can at Trader Joe's before our camping adventures. What an ingenious invention! You can tell I don't get out much! :)
The morning of Day 2 we drove south to Sunset Beach. The scenery on our drive was incredibly varied - we saw some grass and mountains,
Lots of agriculture - greens, strawberry fields, and artichokes plants,
And the Pacific Ocean.
We saw tons of wildlife on our trip - on Day 2 we went on a hike around a big slough and found lots of little crabs.
I am sure that those crabs would be a delicious snack for this sea otter.
Here is a whole raft of otters!
After we left the slough area, we went to the beach! Check out these beautiful flowers growing in the sand.
Here is Daniel relaxing on some driftwood at the beach.
We saw so many birds! Look at these sweet little guys looking for food!
Loving the ocean.
Just look at the set up - just beachtowels and books! It was nice to have a little break from carrying a million sand toys, snacks, and hauling kiddos to the beach. :)
After some beach time we stopped by a fruit stand on our way back to the campsite. The fruit was incredible. We made it a point to stop at this fruit/vegetable stand many more times during our trip. :) Here are some strawberries that were probably picked earlier that day.
Avocadoes were 10 for a dollar!
The sign that welcomes visitors to Watsonville, CA states that it is the artichoke capital of the world!
Just look at these beautiful peppers!
After a relaxing day finding crabs, otters, and birds, visiting fruit and vegetable stands, and lounging on the beach, we went back to our campsite for dinner and scrabble. :)
I love camping with my husband!!
I will be blogging about the rest of our adventures soon!
