Day 25: San Francisco to San Simeon

Miles: 4,830

States: 21

We got a late start yesterday after stopping to blog and email and plan a bit. We saw lighthouses and beautiful costal views before stopping at the Santa Cruz boardwalk for a stroll and some french fries.

After the boardwalk we went to Monterey to visit the marina, which is expertly done. I loved the seahorses and jellyfish and penguins and otters. If you're in this part of the country, try to go. But give yourself more than the hour we had.

After the marina we did 17 mile drive where we snapped photos of the beautiful waterfront homes and golf courses and wished we could afford that kind of landscaping and architecture and views. The cyprus trees are gorgeous.

For most of the drive, the fog was still thick. It was especially bad, however, after we stopped for dinner in Big Sur. We had a peaceful pasta dinner on the river front, then a terrifying two hour drive to the hotel in San Simeon. The fog was thick enough we couldn't see very far ahead of the car, and we knew there were jagged, sheer cliffs invisible directly on our right. Jason stopped suddenly enough to avoid an entire family of deer, who, stuck in the headlights, wouldn't move until we honked. It was scary. I'm not sure we would have kept driving had it not been for Harry Potter. Jason, by the way, is loving HP. His "put Harry Potter back on!" requests are warming my heart.