Returning to San Jose

Today we drove from San Simeon, up Highway 1, past Big Sur and through Monterey and Santa Cruz, then headed from Santa Cruz, back to San Jose.

When we left San Simeon this morning, we were surrounded by a heavy fog, all the way up the coastline, until after we left Santa Cruz this evening, we were still surrounded by the fog.

We stopped for lunch at Big Sur, initially going to the local bakery and realising the restaurant part was closed and the bakery was overpriced, we decided to just have a snack and push on to Monterey for lunch, however we then walked down the hill to the local deli and found much better priced food that looked a lot better than what was on offer at the bakery anyway, so we ate there instead.

Onwards to Monterey, we paused along the way to get a few photos of the rolling fog covering the road and the hills, trying to convey some of the beauty we were experiencing.

Once in Monterey we headed to Cannery Row, where we managed to snag a prime parking spot on the street and walked through the local shops, doing a spot of souvenir shopping before we made another move, this time in the direction of Margaritaville in Capitola. I'm not sure if Capitola is considered a suburb of Santa Cruz or not, but it's close enough that it may as well be, being about 7 miles from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. After a pretty good dinner consisting of a plate of fajita's and a couple of margaritas, we headed in to Santa Cruz itself to see if I could get a photo of the boardwalk all lit up with the jetty in the background, however the fog soon put paid to that idea, so we hit the road once again and made it back to David and Nicole's place around 11pm.

(This post is still a work in progress, with a few tweaks no doubt coming once I get the photos sorted and online)