A Road Tripping Adventure: LA to SF Pt 2

In Part Two of our road tripping adventure : LA to SF I will continue on from where we left Part 1 which you can read about here. After getting up early and checking out from our accommodation we continued along California’s Highway 1 which follows the beautifully rugged coastline. The drive from Big Sur up to Monterey is the most scenic part of the coastline in my opinion, what do you think?. We stopped at the famous Bixby Bridge for some photos and then continued towards Carmel.

Carmel is the cutest, prettiest town. It has a very European Coastline feel to it and its full of restaurants and hotels. I would definitely stay there if I was doing this drive again in the future. We stopped and had some breakfast at a little French place called La Bicyclette which was delightful and then went for a little wander around the town before heading out towards 17 Mile Drive at Pebble Beach.

Pebble Beach is a gated community built right on the coastline and costs $10 to get in. There are massive mansions speckled throughout the area and its home to one of the most famous golf courses in the world and where they play the US Open sometimes.

Its also famous for the the Lone Cypress Tree which is one of the most photographed trees in North America and is possibly 250 years old. Unfortunately the conditions weren’t right to get a good shot of it but it was still cool to see.

Then next town was Monterey which I was excited about seeing. Unfortunately the day was getting on and we had to get to Yosemite before sunset so it was just a quick drive by of Monterey. Next time I would love to check out the world famous aquarium there. Then it was time to say goodbye to the beautiful coastline and head inwards towards Yosemite. We were starting to get hungry so we stopped in at Los Banos for a bite to eat. We had to go to Walmart to buy a hair straightener because my Australian one wouldn’t work with the voltage difference in USA even with a converter (and a girl can’t live without a hair straightener!). It was a really hot day. 99F on the car thermometer and all the people hanging around Walmart seemed really depressed and sad. I just got a really weird vibe from the place. Later that night Andrew googled the town of Los Banos and apparently it is run by some really big gangs which we were unaware of! I don’t know how true that is but it would explain how miserable everyone looked and it also makes for a good tale!

Once we got to Yosemite we checked into our accommodation which was about 20 minutes out of Yosemite National Park. I didn’t realise how annoying this would be at the time of booking because I had been recommended to stay there by another photographer. I would recommend actually staying in the National Park if you can. Much more convenient.

We only got as far as Swinging Bridge before the sun was almost completely gone. Unfortunately the sky was the same colour as the pricture below pretty much the whole time we were at Yosemite which was dissapointing.

Most of California has been in drought for the last three years and being the time of year just before winter, all of the waterfalls had dried up. There wasn’t a whole lot of water around at all. I would love to go back and see this place in the middle of Winter covered in snow. I think it would be magical.

So thats it for Road Trip: Los Angeles to San Francisco Part 2. Stay tuned for Part 3: Yosemite to San Francisco. If you enjoyed this blog i would LOVE it if you could leave a comment in the section below. Even just leave a 🙂 smiley so that I know that you read it if you are to shy to comment!