Sun out, top down. We continue the winding coastal road for the final leg before lunchtime at Nepenthe. A thin salty mist coats the coastline, but the sun is out in full force.
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@sd82300 aka Johnny, has made me aware that the section of highway I was driving along in Parts 2, and 3, are currently out of action due to the recent landslides (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). Looking at my photos, it is pretty clear why. This coastline is tall and steep and rockslides seem to be a constant threat the whole way up.
Landslides are no joke. I once climbed along a section of highway in Columbia which was past a 45 degree angle, with my backpack on, while holding onto the guard rail as we edged across. That was on a fairly flat part of land, so I'm assuming the section of highway 1 hit this year is currently bathing in the pacific.
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I had been looking forward to dropping the top of the car for a bit, but i think it was just too cold to properly enjoy it, plus Megs hair was going crazy, and mine was too, so it was a bit of a distraction to be honest. Fun, but distracting.
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A lot of the time you get a recommendation from a local that ends up being the most tourist filled place, which everyone stops by. On this trip we got lucky with good recommendations by locals. Nepenthe was a bit of both. Everyone stops here, but the host at our Cambria restaurant was correct, this place is spec-bloody-tacular. The view is insane, and the food is also pretty decent too. And long drive equals a hard earned thirst. We stay for an hour for lunch, an ice cold drink, and just to sit in the sun like the seals we saw earlier in the day.
We feel replenished like a video game character and set off north again. I try to coax Meg into driving, but it doesn't even come close to working.
Big Sur. It is big! And from where we were, the surf is huge too. Massive dumping waves smash the monolithic headland and we look at the lightstation less like it is a lightstation, and more like it is a huge government facility hiding something in plain sight.
They say keep out to protect the natural features but what are they really keeping secret? Probably nothing.
Either way, we are not here at the right time for a tour... we obviously didn't do our research, but whatever, we continue north, past indifferent grazing livestock, to the smallish town of Carmel. Someone told us Clint Eastwood was the mayor, and we got mildly excited at the prospect of seeing Dirty Harry in person. Was . He was the mayor in 1986, but we didn't know this until a few weeks later so we wandered the small town like a pair of private investigators looking for the mayor. All we find is dogs, and lots of them.
Our dogspotting adventure through Carmel will be coming tomorrow!
If you want to catch up on our trip up to here the links are below.
Danedebeau
Check out the previous posts in this series:
Part 1 - L.A. to Cambria.
Part 2 - Cambria
Part 3 - Nepenthe to Big Sur
*** The very first photo in this post was edited due to the fact that it was taken on an iphone 4 and was blurry as hell.