Monterey, CA—Jess and I have been offline a bit the last few days, forced by geography to unplug a little and enjoy the beautiful, majestic scenery that is Big Sur. Big Sur is located just south of the city of Monterey, CA. Yep, that Monterey. (Think: Jimi Hendrix, circa 1967, starting his guitar on fire on stage and you’ll probably recall.)
Our first stop in Los Padres National Forest, was just a few miles south of Monterey off Hwy 1. It was very difficult to keep the Egg on the road AND look at the amazing coastline just to our right, so we pulled over at the first coastline access we came to and spent the better half of the afternoon there. I shot a bunch of photos while Jess read Moby Dick while listening to the thundering and erratic waves. To add to this, we brought some low-end Trader Joe’s port and watched the sun set. We had arrived in Big Sur, and it felt glorious.
That night, Jess and I made our way to Nacimiento Road, a free overnight parking option we’d read about. It’s located just up the mountainside from the ocean, just a stone’s throw from most of the activity within Big Sur. In addition to being FREE.99, our pullout was altogether silent. We both remarked that it was our first absolutely quiet night’s sleep since Saint George, UT. As you can imagine, Walmart, Albertson’s, or Safeway’s parking lots are neither quiet, picturesque, or dark. This place had all them in spades and it was magnificent. The next morning we made some pancakes and coffee, cleaned up camp, and moved our whole operation back up the coast to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park for our two-night reservation amongst the towering redwood trees.
On a recommendation of a friend, we decided to stop by the Esalen Institute on the way out of camp in an attempt to get on the list for the public use for their highly sought-after hot springs. The private Esalen Institute offers a two-hour window each morning (1-3am) which is open to the public on a first-come first-serve basis. For 25.00/person, you are guided onto the Esalen grounds and taken down to the hot spring baths, located on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The view could not be better, and I would put this down as my most memorable hot spring experience ever. We managed to snag 2 of the last 3 (of 20 total) slots for that night and ended up having the most relaxing time looking out over the ocean and soaking ourselves after a days worth of hiking up Julia Pfeiffer Burns trails.
The next day we ended up sleeping in a little, getting some work done at camp and then headed out for more sight-seeing. Perhaps the highlight for me was seeing Pfeiffer Beach which was truly stunning, a portion of which I was able to capture as the sun set. Check out the photos below for more Big Sur eye-candy.
