Posts Tagged California
Last Morning in Big Sur
We were up early to begin our 500-mile trek from Big Sur to Medford. The view from our balcony was stereotypically beautiful: peacefully quiet with coastal fog from the ocean spreading among the fir trees and deer grazing in the meadow below.
Elephant Seals
Our drive south ended at Piedras Blancas, near San Simeon and included a long stop to watch the elephant seals.
Big Sur Coast–McWay Falls
One of the recommended stops along this section of the California coast is McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. It is a spectacular setting.
The breathtaking vistas on our sixty-mile drive between The Ventana Inn and San Simeon were non-stop:
Bixby Bridge
Making our way south to Big Sur we crossed the famous, oft-photographed Bixby Bridge on Highway 101. On a beautiful day like this, the setting was, indeed, worth a photo stop.
Pinnacles National Park
Pinnacles is one of the less well-known National Parks but popular, apparently, among local hikers. It was a bit of a disappointment for us. After visiting the stunning topography at the Utah parks and Yosemite the rocky formations at Pinnacles were not so impressive.
End of Day 3
This was a pretty easy travel day and it ended with an amazing sunset over the Pacific Ocean, seen from our motel room balcony, in Seaside, California.
Redwoods
On our way to Salinas, CA we took a side trip to visit another redwoods forest: the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. It was a much smaller park than the ones we visited last year but the trees, of course, were equally amazing.
McConnell Arboretum
On the way to Redding, CA we stopped at the McConnell Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. What a disappointment! It looked more like late fall than early spring. Few plants were flowering or even emerging; many looked near death. Labelling was very poor and there were no guide booklets or maps to be found. It’s unfortunate because the setting is very nice, adjacent to the Sacramento River. Then, we were rear-ended at a stop light just after exiting the garden (but with virtually no visible damage to our car).
Burney Falls
The first stop on our California-Big Sur-Pinnacles trip was Burney Falls, about fifty miles SE of Mt. Shasta. After admiring the lovely 130-foot cascade, we had lunch at a peaceful picnic ground that we had all to ourselves save some squirrels, blue jays and a small band of deer.
Redwoods Puzzle
Posted by nbdog in jigsaw puzzles on 7-Nov-2015
We’ve had a long hiatus from jigsaw puzzles but with the now more frequent rainy days and impending dental surgey I decided to dive into our supplies. This one depicts Elk Prairie in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, one of our stops on last month’s redwoods adventure.
Nutmeg50@hotmail.com 