Big Sur road trip

This year the only activity that I have been doing consistently is “travelling”. I haven’t had much time to do anything else this year. So yes this year, I have been blogging mostly about the places I’ve had the chance to visit.

This was yet another place on our list for a long time now. Last year we drove through Big Sur in California without stopping, since we were getting late. But the scenery was so beautiful that it made us plan another trip, this time a casual one with lot of time at hand.

Hubby’s friend S, his wife N and their baby daughter D joined us for the road trip. It was their first road trip in US. I had a fun time clicking photos along the pacific coast. Pacific ocean is probably the most beautiful ocean, since its water is so BLUE in color. It happens to be my most favorite body of water.

I had read a lot about the Bixby Bridge and this time took a photo of this “one of the most photographed bridges”.

We stopped at every possible view point and just stood admiring the coastline. We had pizza for lunch at the General Store in River Inn. The restaurant was closed for a private wedding event. One can stay here or at the Big Sur lodge for the night.

We then hiked for about 1/4 mile to take a look at the McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, which falls directly into the beach/ocean. It was pretty but trekking with a kid is not so much fun. We had a hard time controlling the naughty kid.

Pfeiffer Beach is lovely, but the last 2 miles of the drive is very steep, narrow and curvy. We missed the road to the beach once and then next time with the help of GPS, we were able to find the road. There is no sign with any directions for the beach. The beach had really strong currents and it was very windy. A portion of the sand on the beach was purple in color (because of manganese garnet).

This beach is famous for these double rock formations through which waves crash.

The only thing we missed was visiting Pfeiffer Falls, which requires us to hike for 1.4 miles in a loop. We could not have done that this time with a small kid. Maybe some other time. Also Big Sur is pretty good for viewing sunsets. Last time we saw one of the best sunsets we have ever seen. But this time, clouds were playing tricks with us and sun was hardly visible.