We spent several days in a B&B in Carmel by the Sea, just south of the Monterey Peninsula.  It’s a charming place, full of cottages and gardens in idyllic nooks and crannies. The beach was fabulous, and dogs accompanied almost every local everywhere they went. We loved walking on the beach in the morning and watching all the local pooches run, chase each other, and literally frolic in the surf. You’d be hard pressed to find happier dogs. Life is good.

However, I won’t miss the oppressive traffic everywhere we went, the difficult parking and the lack of sidewalks which make walking hazardous.

Despite all that, the scenery is spectacular and well worth a visit. We drove from Carmel to Big Sur, about 30 miles to the south. We stopped many times along the way, including at Point Lobos State Reserve. There’s no way to describe the beauty, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. I took dozens, and I had a very hard time paring it down to the ones below.  I blame it on the abundance of wildflowers : )

We’ll start with Point Lobos. It’s a relatively small area, but it has several trails and Bob and I covered most of them over a couple of days. I probably walked about ten miles all over this park.

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Point Lobos is on a small peninsula, so three sides jut into the ocean. Here you can see the fog (not smoke!) rolling off the land and out to see.

Anther view of the small bay.

The wildflowers were stunning. Yellow seemed the dominant color, but there were also purples, oranges, pinks, and reds.

If you look closely, you’ll see a number of harbor seals.

More of the fog.

And a close up.

Bob!

Here we are 🙂

More from Point Lobos.

Remember those happy California Cows from the commercials? Here’s where they live. On the Big Sur coast!

There were several places to stop and explore the coastline on the drive to Big Sur. Here’s an idea of what some of it looked like. The problem was always the parking. We often parked a quarter to half a mile away on the side of the highway. The walking was treacherous, but there were tons of people doing it and the traffic could only move about 25 mph.

Here are some of those orange wildflowers.

The coastline was stunning.

So were the wildflowers!

This is us at Julie’s wedding 🙂

Here we are with the Garcia’s and the father of the bride!

These next pictures are from the second day we spent at Point Lobos. Some of the rocks have the craziest patterns in them.

This whole bay intrigued us. The rock and the erosion made us feel like we were in an amphitheater honoring the ocean. In the crevices were tide pools full of interesting critters.

Maybe I’m dense, but I’ve never thought about where blackberries come from. Here’s the life cycle of a blackberry in a single photo!

I love the color! It makes me crave apricots. 🙂

This is a bit of an illusion. The seagull is on the mainland, the nesting birds in the background are on Bird Island.

Us again!

I loved these strange little red-stalked things. Kinda felt like they were alien plants.

Look close! There are at least ten harbor seals on that little island!