Whale watching

Sea Otters

Sea otters at the Monterey Aquarium.

Monterey Aquarium

Sampling of some fish and jellyfish at the Monterey Aquarium.

Monterey Bay from Pebble Beach

California coast

Coast near Big Sur. See the waterfall in the first picture?

Highway 1

Driving north on Highway 1 from Cambria to Monterrey.

Elephant Seals

Hundreds of northern elephant seals at the San Simeon cove.

After the castle...

Time to go back to Cambria to get the tire plugged. Had a nail in it.

Hearst Castle

Wow! Hearst Castle is an awesome place. Tours are very interesting. The buildings are incredible, the art collections are more impressive, and the history captured there is fascinating.

Not how you want your day to start

Quick spare tire change before heading to Hearst Castle.

Sunset at the Fog Catcher Inn, Cambria, CA

Waves breaking over the rock break wall at Morro Bay

Morro rock at Morro Bay

This guy is eating in his car, and the seagull wants it.

Morro Bay sea otters

Excuse me?

Gourmet "Atomic" Frog Balls

Edna Valley wine region in San Luis Obispo County

Pismo Beach, CA

Hotel choices

The last two nights, in Santa Ynez area, we stayed at an Indian casino hotel. It's a great way to get a very, very nice room at a bargain price during the week, and centrally located to the areas we were visiting.

Saturday morning before leaving home

Backtracking to Saturday, before leaving home to start our vacation, we woke to this beautiful view.

Movie "Sideways"

The movie "Sideways" was set in this area. Some great lines come from this movie including, "Are you chewing gum?!" and others.

We visited three of the Sideways wineries yesterday. Only one of them has any mention of the movie in their tasting room , and interestingly, that one had the worst wines of the day. A couple wineries had some nice wines but we think our local Mendocino county wineries are far better overall.

Solvang

Solvang is an old Danish settlement town. It's packed with cute little shops and restaurants and has a horse-drawn trolley.