From elephant seals to sea lions

Today was the day to drive with our top down all day! Pacific Coast Highway day. I’d read that this road was a destination in itself, not just any old road, with places to pull over and marvel at the coastline with its crashing waves and steep cliffs; and yes, it was quite a nice drive - better than the freeway anyway! But views of our west coast beaches are seriously much better. We did set off with the top down, but the still morning had developed a very fresh wind, coming from the North, and despite being able to shelter behind the windscreen, it really wasn’t too comfortable :-( Our plan was to stop frequently to admire the view, and so it was we pulled off the road at San Simeon. I’d expected there to be a village of some sort to get an ice cream - but it was only a long pier and a sheltered bay. We looked for signs of sea life - otters, seals, sea lions, dolphins, but none were visible today. The recommended way to drive the PCH is to go North to South, but we had chosen to do it in reverse - I forget why now - and experiencing it it’s easy to see why it’s better the other way. However, had we chosen to make this the first part of our journey after leaving San Francisco, rather than going to Yosemite, we would have found our Yosemite experience affected by the US government shutdown, so, it’s a good job we did it our way! A bit further up we, and many other tourists, stopped to take a look at a colony of elephant seals; they were the juveniles and adult males, just resting before heading off out to sea in November - so not really a lot to see; a few flipper scratches here and some sand flicking there. Not smelly though, which was good. 

We pulled over a few times, mainly when there were lots of other cars stopped, to look over the edge and find out what they were all looking at, but on the whole it was a pretty uneventful day. 

We stopped in picturesque boutiqueville Carmel-by-the-Sea, where Clint Eastwood was Mayor for a short time, and had a brief walk on the beautiful white sandy beach - brief because it was blowing a gale and rather chilly, to put it mildy! Monterey, our stopping point for tonight, is just a few kilometers away on the other side of the peninsula. After a welcome cup of coffee it was time to find dinner, which we did down on Fisherman’s Wharf, serenaded by a host of sea lions lolling about on a pontoon just next to the restaurant. Tomorrow has a few possibilities - glass-bottom boat trip out in the harbour, cycling around the waterfront area, or the aquarium. We’ll see what we feel like in the morning, and how kind the weather is! Then it’s off back up to San Francisco for one night at the airport before flying off to Hawaii on Saturday morning. Week 3 draws quietly to a close - goodness!