big sur

Well, it’s been over 3 months since the first post in this two-part series, that’s quite a cliff hanger. I just finished my second semester of grad school, and I usually have to take a little break from this space during classes since there is so much else going on.

But, anyway back to our Big Sur trip. The drive down from San Francisco was absolutely stunning, we probably took twice as long to get there as we should have since I kept pleading to stop every 5 minutes, but every single view of the ocean and the coast was better than the last. Our windows were down, the sun was shining, and we had good tunes and peanut M&M’s. It was basically the perfect day.

We were there for three days and two nights total, and we didn’t actually have a campsite booked when we left, since the place we wanted to stay at, Kirk Creek, is first come, first served. But it’s right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean so I was hoping if we got there early enough, we would get a spot. It was a bit stressful, but we snagged one of the last sites.

The first day we kind of just crept around and explored some of the beautiful beaches in the area. As I mentioned about 10 times, I thought it would be really cold out along the coast in December, so I only brought leggings, combat boots and flannels. Needless to say, I looked pretty crazy at the beach.

I also didn’t realize that some of the little towns there are actually kind of upscale, so I got some strange looks when I walked through the parking lot in my shredded Jack Daniel’s t-shirt, but I won it playing quarters when I was 17 and I’ll never not wear it, no matter how ratty it gets.

We thought about making the trek to Hearst Castle since it’s only a little further down the road, but after two days of camping, and my aforementioned wardrobe woes, we decided to wait until next time when we might be a little more presentable (unlikely).

There is almost no phone service there, so it was actually such a relaxing few days. We had a great time hiking and exploring, and then came back to our camp site to drink grapefruit beer, grill vegetarian sausages with extra mustard (for me) and smokies (for D) and enjoy the ocean view from our tent.

There is also a really pretty beach along the front of the campgrounds, but you have to shimmy down the side of a cliff using a rope that is older than I am to get there. It’s a bit tricksy, especially if you have a Twisted Tea in your hand, but still very do-able.

I had been hearing really good things about this podcast, so I downloaded a couple of episodes to listen to in the evenings, which I immediately regretted, since hearing about victims of brutal murders who were camping in Yosemite at the time (only a few hours away) was basically a guarantee that I would be up all night listening for the slightest rustle in the bushes outside. Did I mention there are quite a few raccoons in the area?

Overall it was an amazing few days, and basically my favourite part of Christmas 2016. I can’t wait to go back to Big Sur, and maybeeee spend one night sleeping here, in a human nest?

Since we ended up spending the whole Christmas break in California, we decided to sneak away for a few days to Big Sur. It was honestly even better than I thought it would be, I had been planning for subzero temperatures, but it was actually gorgeous out during the day, though it was a little chilly sleeping in a tent at night.

We spent our whole second day there exploring the different hiking trails, including Ewoldsen Trail and McWay Falls, which isn’t really a hike at all, more of a quick saunter down a paved sidewalk, but the view at the end is stunning.

Ewoldsen Trail took us about 3 hours total, but at the top there is the option to take a detour onto Waters Trail, which is about 200 yards straight uphill, but leads to the most gorgeous views of the entire coastline. We were pretty tired and sweaty by the time we got to the top, not to mention dehydrated since I hate carrying water with me when I hike, so we stayed at the top for almost an hour, just enjoying the view and recuperating.

The colour of the water is absolutely stunning, so we laid in the grass, soaked up the sunshine and listened to a little boy in the only other group at the top counting the whales surfacing along the shore. He got to somewhere in the 50’s before his parents dragged him back down the hill, although I’m pretty sure he counted the same whale more than once.

I would definitely recommend all of these trails, although they do get busy later on in the day. We got there at 8:30, and were one of the only cars in the parking lot, and we only saw a few other people on the trail, but by the time we got back to our car we were passing huge groups of people on their way to the trailhead, and people were parking for miles along the highway on either side.