John & Anne Wiley

2015/07/25

Yankee to Cypress

Filed under: Coasting Adventure,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random — John @ 05:51

Yummy photogenic Yankee Point treated us to a rainbow in the few low clouds huddling along the rugged shore where mansions cluster close to the untamed cliffs.

5507 Yankee Point

5507 Yankee Point

Point Lobos pointed the way beyond Carmel and across Monterey to the distant bay.

5483 Point Lobos

5483 Point Lobos

Near a beautiful beach the Carmelite Mission offers an ideal location for soul soothing strolls.

5475 Carmelite Mission

5475 Carmelite Mission

There are some pretty impressive mansions in the Pebble Beach area, though most are hidden from roads.

5467 Pebble Panorama

5467 Pebble Panorama

Cypress Point might be both heaven and hell for golfers with hazards ranging from strong unpredictable wind to flocking and nesting birds and perhaps a few aggressive pinnipeds. At least it’s a great place to pause and relax if the stress gets to you.

5466 Cypress Point

5466 Cypress Point

Along this part of the famous 17 Mile Drive are some great viewing spots like this next one, where you can see tourists standing agape at the top of the pic. But few other than golfers know about that tiny sheltered sand beach below the green on this side of the fence.

5459 CP Secret

5459 CP Secret

Looking back, this seems as good a spot as any to bid goodbye for now to the abundant spectacles of beautiful Big Sur.

5453 Bye Bye Big Sur

5453 Bye Bye Big Sur

2015/07/24

Soberanes to Malpaso

Filed under: Coasting Adventure,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random — John @ 04:45

The area around Soberanes Point is rocky. The shoreline is rough and riddled with sea caves yet the road is fairly close, lower, and more gently curving.

5529 Soberanes Point

5529 Soberanes Point

The cliffs look small, but as you can see in this next pic from the house inset at left for scale the cliffs are pretty tall.

5525 Cliff Scale

5525 Cliff Scale

In case you hadn’t already guessed, despite looking very much like an inset, it’s an actual house (mansion?). That shows how high these cliffs really are. Here’s a less strange looking pic showing some homes next door along the Aurora Del Mar frontage road.

5523 Aurora Del Mar

5523 Aurora Del Mar

In some places here there are beautiful sheltered tiny private beaches, many with soft sand between the rocks. Even though fairly high above the high water line, many of these buildings probably get quite a pounding from big storms. Window washing must be a daily chore, to maintain these amazing ocean views.

5521 Micro Beaches

5521 Micro Beaches

Now we reach Malpaso Creek, which again some say marks the end of Big Sur because it’s the start of the large Carmel Highlands area. At first glance I thought it was also the end of Big Sur’s beautiful concrete arch bridges from the 1930s.

5520 Stepped Bridge?

5520 Stepped Bridge?

But in the full-resolution version of this pic I can see that the white “step” outline is just a plastic cover over scaffolding. Apparently this bridge is getting some repair work. There’s a lovely beach here, complementing the sea caves to its right and left.

2015/07/23

Rocky Pt. to Granite Cyn.

Filed under: Coasting Adventure,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random — John @ 05:35

Beyond Bixby things start to look more upscale and Carmel By The Sea (if that’s a look). Just past the Rocky Point is this collection of nice looking places with great seaside locations an easy drive from the city. Is this still Big Sur? Some say yes, others no.

5568 Rocky Pt. Homes

5568 Rocky Pt. Homes

More homes cluster around the lovely Garrapata Creek Bridge where they’re mostly hidden from the highway by trees like the pic above.

5565 Garrapata Creek

5565 Garrapata Creek

Even more beautiful is the Granite Canyon bridge, where a small waterfall drops directly into the ocean in most tides.

5553 Granite Canyon

5553 Granite Canyon

Just beyond is the Marine Pollution Studies Laboratory (MPSL) where U.C. Davis is doing some cutting edge research on the water quality in this relatively pristine area.

5549 Granite Cyn MPSL

5549 Granite Cyn MPSL

Looking back toward Rocky Creek where we left off yesterday, you can see how many marvels we see in a slow progression that still takes only three minutes. Simple amazing.

5560 Looking Back

5560 Looking Back

2015/07/22

Little Sur, Bixby, Rocky

Filed under: Coasting Adventure,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random — John @ 00:13

At a wide curve in Hwy. 1, the Little Sur River has long fascinated me, so when approaching it from either direction we’d pull over to let traffic go by so I could slow down and enjoy it. A few times we even stopped on the shoulder to let sea sounds and smells mingle with the magic of the place in the silence between vehicles.

5598 Little Sur River

5598 Little Sur River

Though the surf sound is missing it’s visually nicer from the air, because we needn’t wait for low tide and scramble out past the rocks to risk a rogue wave while looking at the sea-carved stone.

5594 Carved Stone

5594 Carved Stone

Another spot popular with us is Bixby Bridge, and even some of the speeders will pull over there for a look.

5587 Bixby Bridge

5587 Bixby Bridge

Not many know about or try to get a look at Dinosaur Rock out at the point, but we like this perspective plus Castle Rock and the sea caves.

5577 Dino Rock

5577 Dino Rock

In a different region, the Rocky Creek Bridge with rare orchids and sea otters would draw a crowd, but so close to Bixby this one gets little attention.

5586 Rocky Creek Bridge

5586 Rocky Creek Bridge

2015/07/21

The Point

Filed under: Coasting Adventure,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random — John @ 04:01

We’ve never been out to the light at Point Sur, and that part of the drive along the flat is less striking to me. But now that we more often fly this route than drive it, this is one of many great vistas.

5617 Pt. Sur to Carmel

5617 Pt. Sur to Carmel

I’d assumed this installation on the flat to be associated with the light station, but in researching this series of pix discovered it’s the Point Sur SOSUS Naval Facility. I quite enjoyed reading that wiki about it, though from the air it doesn’t look like much these days.

5615 USN SOSUS Point Sur

5615 USN SOSUS Point Sur

By contrast, this beautiful old two-story stone keeper’s house out at the light looks really cool!

5603 Keeper of the Light

5603 Keeper of the Light

Down at the tip of the hill, the current Point Sur Lighthouse is of course truly magnificent and is still useful even in this era of GPS and other electronic aids to navigation. Now it mostly evokes a time when stoic tireless crews operating this beacon were honored for the lives they saved.

5608 Point Sur Light

5608 Point Sur Light

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Blog at WordPress.com.