There were two queen size beds. Tim and I slept in one, Cameron and Leah in the other. Since the hotel didn't have a pack-n-play, Aaron shared the bed with Tim and I.
The rest of the room. It was a pretty good size. One funny thing - when we arrived at the hotel room, that closet didn't exist. It was built during one of the days when we were out and about. It was really weird to come back to a closet where one didn't previously exist!
Our hotel, Motel Capri
Our plan for Saturday was to do the first part of the drive down CA-1, the Pacific Coast Highway. Tim and I were very excited for this part of the trip, to check out the beautiful scenery and have a fun road trip. We wanted to break up the drive as much as possible so we were never in the car for more than an hour or two at a time. We figured that would make everyone happy, to limit any long stretches of time in the car.
Our hotel for Saturday and Sunday night was in Carmel so we had a couple of hours to drive over the course of the day. We didn't have any set plans for the day, figuring that we would just find cool places to stop along the way. It turned out to be a very good non-plan!
Here is our car configuration - Cameron was in the back row (with all of his stuffed animals, of course). Leah and Aaron were in the second row - Leah behind the driver's seat, Aaron behind the passenger seat.
Smiley Leah
Cameron and Tiger
Good bye, Golden Gate bridge - thanks for popping out of the fog to see us off!
This was on the drive down to the ocean. We had no idea what it was but it looked pretty cool
Our first views down CA-1
There were tons of pull offs along the entire thing. We could have stopped every two minutes if we wanted to.
It was a pretty steep drop down to the beach below.
Daddy, Cameron and Leah checking out the view.
About an hour or two into the drive, we stopped at a place that Aunt Susan told us about - Harley Farms. It is a goat farm and dairy near Pescadero.
They had lots of really cute little goats, more big and not-so-cute goats, and some llamas too. Cameron liked petting the little ones.
Hello llama!
Giving the little ones some food.
Aaron was wide awake and alert the whole time we were there - I guess there were a lot of neat new things for him to check out.
They had a shop with lots of wonderful homemade cheeses. These are just some of them. The second and fourth ones in the picture below have edible flowers decorating them. They had lots of samples of the cheeses, as well as bread, jellies, olive oils and dressings. It was all so delicious! We bought a couple of the cheeses but could have spent a lot more.
Cameron petting one of the cats that lived on the farm
Walking back to the car, Leah found these neat little acorn-ish things on the ground.
We weren't sure what they were, but they were really cool.
Close up of the acorn/nut/seed things
Cameron and Leah liked this little table outside of the farm shop.
After our time at the goat farm, we stopped at the nearby town of Pescadero to get some lunch. We stopped at a bakery/grocery store to get some things to go with our fresh cheese for lunch.
Cam and Leah being cute
Lunch - fresh baked bread, fresh local cheese, salami and a local beer. So simple but amazingly delicious. Everyone LOVED it.
We ate at a picnic table behind the bakery
Cute Mr. Cameron
Cam wanted to take some pictures - Mama and Aaron
Daddy and Leah
After lunch we headed on down the road to continue our drive to Carmel. Along the way we saw a sigh for a lighthouse so we decided to go check it out.
Pigeon Point Lighthouse
The lighthouse was perched out on a bluff with steep cliffs all around. It was a really cool view.
Family picture in front of the lighthouse
The very cool Fresnel lens that used to light up the lighthouse. I can't remember the exact figure but I think it was a couple of tons. Crazy!
Leah being cute with the lighthouse
Pretty flowers near the lighthouse
More pretty flowers
Cam and Daddy decided to climb down the rocks to the beach below
There they are, down on the beach
Climbing back up
Continuing our drive
Cameron checking out the view at one of the pull offs. Yes, he is about a foot from the edge of a very steep cliff. Daddy lets him get a lot closer than Mama would!!
As we kept driving south, the weather got nice. It was very overcast and cloudy when we started the drive but by mid-afternoon it was getting to be sunny and blue skies.
More beautiful coast
Cameron liked to get out and look at most of the stops we made. Then he liked to go running back to the car. Leah wasn't really so interested in getting out, she was too busy playing with the games and toys that were packed in her backpack.
Or sleeping!
Driving through Santa Cruz. It looked like a really cool town, but wow was the traffic crazy!
Police car vs train, who will win?
The police car moved so I guess that means the train won. Here it is driving past our car. The kids thought it was awesome how close it was to us.
And now everyone is sleeping! Gotta love car naps.
We arrived in Carmel and checked into our hotel. It was a really nice place. We decided to stay there for two nights so we had time to check out the area. We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. The kids' meals were in these really cool bento boxes, which of course were a major hit with Cameron and Leah.
Happy boy
Silly girl!
Cameron's picture - he worked so hard on it that he wanted to make sure we had a picture of it in case anything happened. Lucky that we did, because I think something got spilled on it so we ended up not being able to take it with us.
I think these are three of the cutest kiddos ever on the entire planet!
Kisses for Aaron!
We ended up going to bed pretty early that night, tired after a fun day. We had big plans for the next day - Point Lobos - so we wanted to get a good night's sleep.
