Advertisement
Published: August 21st 2012
Edit Blog Post
Up around 7:30; Ken is already up, had his first cup of coffee. He's been getting the RV ready for travel. I'm not sure what that means. All I know is that he goes outside to do it and I don't have to do it. He makes me a latte; we have OJ and whole wheat blueberry waffles. Showers; put things away and we are on the road.
We are headed to Big Sur, CA today. The Pacific Coast Highway is just absolutely beautiful. It is a must for everyone to do at least once. Put it on your bucket list! In Santa Barbara we stopped for lunch at Panera Bread. We split a roast beef, cheddar and horseradish sandwich and picked up some Cinnamon Crumb coffee cake for tomorrow with coffee.
We decide to take a scenic route out of Santa Barbara. We took route 154 (San Marcos Pass Road). It cuts through the mountains and goes past Lake Cachuma Recreation area. It is actually a reservoir created by the Bradbury Dam, built in 1953. Its surface area covers 3,100 acres. There are several Boyscout camps in the area. As we start to decend, we pass Solvang, Santa
Ynez and Los Olivos; little towns with vineyards and farmer's markets. We took a jeep wine tour in this area in 2007. Another fun thing I recommend.
We picked up the PCH again and I thought it was beautiful leaving Malibu....but the drive out of Paso Rablos to Big Sur was more than breathtaking. Again, put it on you Bucket List. The road was very winding and high up on a cliff. The views were amazing. It seemed like just off the cliff was the end of the earth. It was 66 miles from Hearst Castle to Big Sur. I'm not sure how long it took but it was hours. We stopped to take pictures when we could. With the RV, it's hard to find a place big enough.
We arrived at Big Sur Campground and found our spot. It was a beautiful campground in the woods, with the huge Redwood trees. The spot they gave us was right in the middle of an area, so cars driving and people walking were all around us. As beautiful as it was we felt like we were in a fishbowl. There was a small river along the edge of the
campground. It would have been nice to get a site next to the river but nothing was available. You can rent inner tubes and float down the river. It seemed kind of shallow to me for that, but kids were doing it; plus it was 64 degrees outside but when you are a kid, you don't care. There also was a huge playground and basketball court. A paradise for kids really. The campground also has cabins and tent/cabins (wood floor, canvas walls, fiberglass roof, canvas shades, bed with linens, towels---just like the camp the twins in "Parent Trap" went to) that they rent. There are a lot of tent campers too.
Afterwards we asked the front office if there were any good restaurants nearby. I almost felt silly asking because we were in the middle of nowhere with no cell or wifi. He said, actually yes, if you walk up the hill and then take the path through the woods, you will arrive at the River Inn Restaurant. We walked about 1/2 mile through the woods, crossed a little creek and found the restaurant. We sat outside in the back. The food was OK...nothing like the Malibu Seafood. By
the time we finished, it was very dark and there was no way we were going to walk back through the woods, so we walked back on the PCH. It was kind of scary because it was so dark and the road is narrow. Every time we saw a car coming, we moved as far as we could to the dirt and grass. We actually passed some road kill too..so gross. Once we got back to the camp, we read and went to bed.
During the night, we woke up freezing; it was 51 degrees outside and 55 inside. Ken got up and put the down blanket on and we were snug as two bugs in a rug.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0444s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
Big sur is on my list! That jeep Tour WAS fun!!