Driving down the 101...

So after all our San Fran and Yosemite fun...we kept on driving and stopped off in Santa Cruz! (Of course all the while accompanied by a soundtrack of The Thrills 'Santa Cruz...you're not that far)

We were somewhat limited on what we could do on the boardwalk, since I was out of action for going on the rides! so I was delighted when I found a deep fried Oreo stall!

We indulged in our deep fried treats high up above the ground on the cable car ride - I had pinned this to my pinterest years ago and couldn't wait to go for a ride! Look how blue that sky was!

It was a pretty good view down to the beach below!

Sadly, as we ventured on to the beach itself the wind really picked up and despite what the weather might have looked like, it certainly wasn't sunbathing and play in the sea weather so there went another of our planned beach days! 

I consoled myself by having a Dole pineapple whip drink...because all the American bloggers I follow rave about them, it turns out it's just a whip of ice cream in some pineapple juice and really was rather too sweet for our liking!

We stopped off in Monterey for a spot of lunch at Turtle Bay Taqueria...not the best Mexican I've ever had, we were beginning to wonder where all these rumours of California having the best Mexican food were coming from! I guess we just picked the wrong places!

We drove into Carmel by the Sea...which is just the cutest quaintest little town! Sadly the weather was going from bad to worse!!

So again we stayed away from the beach and checked out the cute little buildings instead!

I loved this alley way covered in tree roots and fairy lights!

We walked down to the beach but it was too chilly to hang around so we went on our way!

We stayed the night with another random host through air bnb in Carmel Valley, and were greeted by the most enormous bed you've ever seen!! It was so nice to sleep in a bed again after a lot of camping!

 Our bedroom even looked out onto this cute little flower filled courtyard! So typical that as soon as you slightly moved away from the coast the sunshine and heat would come out in full force!

We ate dinner in a local hill billy kind of place! complete with hanging cowboy boots everywhere!

I had a turkey and mashed potato baguette which was bigger than my head, I don't know why I didn't take a picture of it! This was me loving having freshly washed hair after too many days without hot showers at the campsites we'd been staying at!

The next morning we carried on driving down the 101 for another planned beach day but oh California had other plans for us! We stopped off at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to see this cute little waterfall and pretty cove of water.

Considering for the past 7 years I've been trying to convince Byron California is where we need to move to, and I've been doing it by telling him all about their year round sunshine and blue skies...the weather was really not on our side on our trip! We stopped off at this beach in Big Sur...

and to be honest I was reluctant to get out the car!

It was the first day on our whole trip that I had to put my coat on!! in California of all places, craziness!

Of course Byron still went for a dip because he's crazy like that...I kept my feet firmly on the sand and tried to find a spot out of the wind to do some sunbathing! Occasionally the clouds would part and the sun would peek through but not for long enough to really enjoy it!

So I cheered myself up by chowing down on tons of delicious baked goods we had bought from the Big Sur Bakery!

A quick stop off along the side of the road to take a picture of tons of sea lions! These animals make such crazy noises!

More lovely blue skies...and Hearst Castle was right around here somewhere in the distance...

I think By was peeking at it through his little telescope!

We camped the night in San Simeon, mostly because one of my fave teenage bands Goldfinger has a song about San Simeon so it made perfect sense to add it to our California mix and drive into San Simeon singing 'wherever I go, I'll stay...my mind will always be San Simeon'!! 

 

This was our little strip of beach just across from the campsite that we checked out just as the sun was setting!

The next day as we carried on driving Byron noticed a sign for a little town called Cayucos, it was a detour from where we were heading but he saw there was a sign saying it was 'home of the original brown butter sea salt cookie' - he asked if I wanted to stop off and check it out!

My answer was 'of course'! So we strolled into the Brown Butter Cookie Company

and were met with so much cuteness! Everywhere we turned bags and bags of cookies! There were so many flavours it was hard to pick!

In the end, By opted for the honey flavour cookies and I was sold on the coconut lime.  We had also tried some of the original brown butter cookies in the shop...and they were some of the best cookies we've ever had! Complete melt in your mouthers...so our little stop off at the tiny one horse town of Cayucos turned out to be a good one indeed!

Up next Santa Barbara, Carpinteria and Malibu!