Carmel to Big Sur

The next day, we woke up early, ate breakfast, and went out to explore the area beyond the little town by the sea. ...But it was cloudy out until about 11 am, so we hung out at a local coffee shop and read for awhile.



Then we went to check out the Carmel Mission aka Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. There are 21 historic missions in California. "The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to colonize the Pacific Coast region, and gave Spain a valuable toehold in the frontier land." (Wikipedia)





We drove the famous 17 mile drive through Pebble Beach and along the coast with a bunch of vistas. It was pretty, but the verdict is still out whether it was worth $9.50.







At one of the stops, we ate lunch. It was a little overcast.





Then we went to Point Lobos State Reserve and hiked for a couple hours around the peninsula. It's only about 8 square miles, but was historically home to a big abalone business of Japanese and Chinese fishermen. It's was really pretty.



I've never eaten abalone. The guy at the park was telling us that he's only had it once in an Asian restaurant. He said that it was considered a delicacy, and it was only a very small piece of meat. Not only that, but it was really chewy with not much taste at all. Apparently he wasn't supposed to chew, but just swallow it whole. It doesn't sound that great to me...

Can you believe they used to scuba dive in this suit? The helmet alone probably weighs 50 lbs.





On our way out of the area, we stopped by Tickle Pink Inn, where my parents went on their honeymoon back in 1977. It was gorgeous.



Then we drove down the 101 highway along the coast to Big Sur. The drive was unbelievable. Some of the most amazing views ever.






Then we started getting nervous because we needed a campsite. We had hoped there would be plenty available in/near Big Sur. Welp, we were wrong. We started calling and there were no vacancies. One of the places we called said there was a campsite about 40 minutes away off of the highway down some random road. We took the risk, with 1/4 tank of gas left, hoping it wasn't too far.... We found ourselves in the middle of clouds, on top of a mountain driving on a one lane windy road with sharp drops on the side of us. I don't get car sick, but I started feeling a little woozy.




Finally, we showed up to this campsite in a valley, and we got one of the last couple campsites available for the night. Praise the Lord!

Early in the morning we headed to Kings Canyon National Park, about a 3 or 4 hour drive. Since it was tough finding campsites in Big Sur, we figured we were really pushing our luck to hope for first-come-first-serve campsites for the whole trip. We left the next morning at 6 am. But we soon found out that God was watching out for us :)