California Coast

Fog engulfed San Francisco. It was an early Saturday morning so we were able to get a real taste of this city. Runners, bikers, children’s soccer games, and lots of lots of people. Although crowds usually irk us to the core, we didn’t seem to mind it here. This is Zack’s favorite city. He loves the architecture, the weather, and the bay. First we visited the Golden Gate Bridge national recreational area where the eerie vog made for some Halloween inspired pictures. I captured a great moment of a surfer riding a wave under the bridge. You can’t even see the majority of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Touring the Presidio by car we were able to see all the different buildings that encompassed the military base. Passing by some amazing houses, Zack wasn’t shy about taking pictures right at their doorsteps. We talked, we dreamed, but these million dollar mansions just aren’t in the cards for us. We’ll stick with our future tiny house for now. Lombard Street is an obvious must do when in San Fran, but we didn’t know if De’Von was going to make it through the most crooked street in the US. My doubts and concerns were not going to stop Zack. So we plowed down, cutting it close around one turn but overall De’Von and his horrible turning radius did well.

Lunch was arriving and our plan was to go to In-N-Out for the first time since we’d been on the west coast. Something caught Zack’s eye and as soon as I knew it he was haggling a salesman for camera equipment. I wanted a new lens and Zack a new lightweight mirrorless camera. Both things we have been wanting to buy, both things we would eventually buy, and we haggled our way down to a third of the combined price with a camera bag and memory card included. We practically robbed the store. Zack was intimidating as hell, I on the other hand kept checking my heart rate on my Fitbit and my armpits were visibly sweating, I’m a nervous nelly when it comes to haggling. The only words I said to salesman was, “please I really don’t have any money, we’re living out of our car.” Who knows what worked and what didn’t because I walked out of there with a beautiful lens that can take pictures of the craters on the moon. We roamed around Fisherman’s wharf aimlessly. We just walked and talked about random topics… what is fog, why are the seagulls so big here, and how can we convince our entire family to move out to California.

Halloween weekend in San Francisco had us excited. We were going all out this year regardless of the road trip, just like we always do. We got a hotel at night so we wouldn’t have to worry about parking and sleeping. Zack dressed up as Salt Bae, a big hit on social media and a restaurant owner. He does tricks with his steak and sprinkles a pinch of coarse salt at the end of every video. Zack nailed it. And indeed I needed to make some type of couples costume so I was a cow… his favorite dish. We inhaled burritos that we had taken to go, and we were celebrating! We put on some Halloween tunes, changed into our costumes and had a photoshoot. We pranced around the hotel, laughing hysterically as we were obviously the center of everyone’s attention. San Francisco has great night life and is always a good time.

The next morning we devoured the continental breakfast and headed toward Santa Cruz. At least a hundred surfers enjoyed the swell of the 8-12 foot waves near the municipal wharf. Oh just a regular day in Santa Cruz, but Zack and I were amazed. Although the surfing didn’t get as many people’s attention, the seals that dominated the lower deck of the boardwalk were treated like celebrities. The Halloween event for the night was some Hispanic salsa dancing. We watched in awe wishing we had a quarter of those moves. Even a few homeless people gathered around and danced. We slept on a side street near a Patagonia, woke up early and headed south to Big Sur.

We stopped at Monterrey for a few pictures and kept heading south. There was a massive one billion tons rock slide that divided highway 1. We were nervous our favorite off grid campsite was destroyed. On the way we stopped at Bixby Bridge and Julia Pfeiffer state park, home of the popular Mcway Falls.

An amazing combination of turquoise water, a freshwater waterfall and the inaccessible beach. It’s the type of place you put down your camera and just appreciate the view. After a short walk we made our way to see if our campsite was still there. Sure enough we made the left, traveled up the mountain and found our spot. Except instead of our perfect view of last year, we were engulfed in clouds. We hugged, reminisced, took some pictures but we knew it was only 2 and it didn’t seem like the clouds were moving. Last year we randomly found this road solely because all the campgrounds in Big Sur were full. We figured we would find some dispersed camping in Los Padres National Forest. Now this road was the only road that connects highway 1 back inland and around the mudslide. Probably due to its new popularity, we spotted a lot more people on this road and in the established campgrounds. We headed east toward Pinnacles National Park.