Just over a week ago, we spent a magical few days in Big Sur.
It’s not hyperbole. I think magical is actually the appropriate word choice because a. Big Sur, duh, and b. we packed up five kids and went camping—at a hike-in campsite! Also, there’s c:
Six months earlier, to the date, I had been logging in at Reserve California and waiting for the rolling reservation slot to open for the two on-the-water campsites at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. I could hardly believe my good fortune when I scored both sites the weekend before Aron’s 40th birthday. Magic!
We would stay for three nights and our friends would join us for two.
Any fun plans this weekend? We are going out to dinner with friends before seeing Free Solo. As someone with mild vertigo, I can tell you that it looks dizzying but also beautiful. I’m really interested to see what we think of it, particularly in the wake of the news that two people just died from a fall in Yosemite a few days ago.
We also have a Halloween party to go to on Saturday. I’ll post photos of our costume. I think we’re almost set… I just need a wig. And we’re doing some more birthday celebrations on Sunday night—both Aron and his mother had birthdays this past week.
Okay, last weekend before Halloween… are you all set?
Here are a few things you might find useful from the archives, followed by some links of note…
Three miles south of Carmel, on a stunning stretch of Highway 1, the entrance to the State Natural Reserve of Point Lobos, is easy to pass without noticing—particularly as there is so much beauty nearby to distract you. But it rightly calls itself one of the “crown jewels” of California’s 280 state parks.
The Reserve hosts 550 fully protected land acres, and its protected underwater area is over eighteen times that size, at 9,907 acres. Wildlife includes seals, sea lions, sea otters, migrating gray whales (from December to May), and thousands of seabirds, who also make the reserve their home. And the reserve’s Cypress Grove Trail winds through one of the two naturally growing stands of Monterey cypress trees remaining on Earth!
We stopped on our way home from Big Sur this past Sunday, as we happened to reach it right at low tide.
