We are on our way to Santa Barbara on Highway 101 today. Decided not to take Highway 1, which can take seven hours on a windy road. Yesterday we decided to drive down to Big Sur and it was a beautiful day, clear blue sky and ocean to match.

It was  quite crowded for a weekday on the road, and Point Lobos park was closed to cars as they had no room, so we decided to keep going south. I had spent time there in my 20s in the tidepools looking at the marine life. There are beautiful homes just south of Carmel Valley, and you see one every so often hugging the cliffs as you drive down to the Big Sur area. It’s hard to believe that they can drive down to these homes it’s so steep!

Our destination vas the Ventana Inn, which has a lovely restaurant with a spectacular view of the coastline south of Big Sur. We arrived there for a late lunch and were escorted to this beautiful patio with large green umbrellas and a very stylish crowd eating their lunch. The view was really unbelievable. We must have been several thousand feet above the ocean, but the view was unobstructed.

We both had very generous salads, mine was a Cobb and Glenn’s was Caesar and shared a Calamari appetizer. We decided that the desserts had to be good, so we shared a lavender vanilla creme brûlée. I had an Australian soda called Bundaberg in Blood Orange flavor, delicious and refreshing!

My goodness, this is starting to sound like a food tour?! Decided to pass on dinner and took a nice long nap on returning back to our hotel in Carmel in the afternoon. This morning we packed our bags and headed out on Hwy 68 to Salinas (where all of our salad greens come from) to connect with Hwy 101 south. We have about a four hour drive ahead of us today to Santa Barbara, not too bad.

This afternoon we will check in to the El Capitan Canyon resort. It’s sort of upscale camping as we understand it. They have Yurts and cabins, and the Yurts were sold out so we will stay in a cabin for three days. They have a BBQ Saturday night with a band, and we plan on getting our boards in the water this stop! Glenn has two nieces who live here and we plan to get together with them during our stay.

More to come!