Drive the coast

Isn't it gorgeous?

I took this photo while standing on a rock in Pacific Grove, feet numb from the cold water and jeans rolled to my knees. I can't enthuse enough about the California coast; it's amazing. My lovely friends loaded me into the back of their car and drove down from Palo Alto so I could hit Steinbeck country (a direct quote: "You are the only person I know who would drool at the idea of going to the Steinbeck museum").

Pacific Grove, where the butterflies swarm, is heavily mentioned in Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday, and Steinbeck himself must have climbed these very rocks with his pal Ed Ricketts, the model for Doc.

This photo was taken from the rather craggy rocks. I put my shoes back on to climb over them, looking for tide pools (it would have been more fun to wade, but it was not that shallow with the waves washing in). This was not so much a tide pool as a massive tidal inlet of sorts, but it was the best I could do in that particular location. Look how clear the water is.

After this, we got back in and did the 17-mile drive around Pebble Beach, which by the way costs $9.25. The toll presumably keeps out the riffraff and also pays for PB to maintain scenic stairs and bathrooms and fence off certain sections during harbor seal pupping season, which it is right now. We then looped around to Carmel, had dinner in Clint Eastwood's restaurant, the Hog's Breath Inn, and hit the highway back home. The best day. There will be a more Steinbeckian post soon.