Christmas gifts to get ... ME

Everyone has been asking my hubby (and me) what I want for Christmas.

Easy: Nothing! Your love and undying admiration. That's it. I have everything that I want. If I don't have it, it is sitting in my shopping cart on Nordstrom.com. Trust me.

BUT, if you had to get me something for Christmas... like REALLY had to get something because you'll 'splode otherwise? Okay. Here we go.

Candles. They are like crack. I'm gonna start calling them "crandles". Ha. If I'm in a bad mood, I light up a cigarette crandle. If I'm happy, I light a crandle. If camo-ed men fart in my house, I light a crandle. You get the picture.

So, support my addiction. Ship a crandle. Here are some of my favorites. Don't you wish we had the modern version of smellevision? Then you could inhale all of the delicious scents that I experience everyday, without paying the ridiculous dolla dolla bills that I dole out every few weeks.

Happy holidays?

Snowy Saturday: What I'm listening to

Little Mommasita always bought the newest Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album every holiday season. Listening to them makes me miss home, but feel cozy here in California, so it's on repeat. Hardcore repeat.

Enjoy. Shalom.

Golden City Brewery (The second largest brewery in Golden!)

The next step of our Colorado Brewery Tour happened on a total whim. Little Whitney (cute brunette on the left a few pictures down) was visiting from Kansas and wanted to buy her dad a mug from Coors Brewery. On the way out of Coors, someone commented on how huge the Coors compound was, and I brought up the "second largest brewery in Golden," the Golden City Brewery. 

Mom made a frantic U-turn of sorts, and we found our place - right next to the little health food store in Golden. Despite the freezing temperatures, there were people sitting outside, all nicely bundled up, huddling around the fire and drinking microbrews (with a baby, I might add - again, sounding much like our beloved June Lake). 

Staff: awesome. Beer: awesomer (okay Blogger, I know awesomer isn't a word. Stop auto-correcting my intentional idiocracy (also not officially a word)). 

The brewery had the wonderful homey, local feel that we've all come to expect from our local microbreweries. The beer garden with Christmas lights, families around a fire, and co-eds smoking hand rolled cigarettes (that Mommasita confused for reeefferrrrr), made it an ever better experience. Plus, it's semi-hard to find, and $5 a pint, so you really feel like you earned your beer. 

Love.

I asked this guy his name, and repeated it to myself 3 times, like you're supposed to.
His name is Matt. Or Mike. It's NOT Jeff or Bob. Fur sure.

Whitney and me, staying warmish, by totally chugging our beers
(kidding, but it was our third technical beer stop of the day).

"Are you taking a photo of me?!?! Don't take a photo of me. Seriously, I'm your mother, don't take a photo of me."
"okay mom. Taking a photo of you AND posting it on my blog for the world to see"
"love you."

Every business should have kegs of beer and a red wall.
Oh, hey! They have that...

Hard place to find. Helps if you look for a huge kettle.

Front door view. Very neighborhood. Literally in a neighborhood. 

The Spot (for free lunch, beers, family time, and nowwww... cute photos!)

Clif and I go back to Colorado every Thanksgiving. It's the one holiday for which everyone in my family decides to come home - and for good reason.

Basically, the first few days all we did was drink. Me and my Baptist family. Drankin'. I felt like I was back in June Lake! Home away from home away from home. Love.

First stop: My dad's favorite bar and restaurant in Golden, the Spot.

The Spot has an unassuming storefront (kind of boring, really), but remains quite classic-dark inside.

It has also become the place for everyone who works/knows my dad to get a free lunch, because my dad loves the place so much he gets excited and buys everyone's lunch. Adorable.

So we show up, and my dad's employees are sitting a few booths down, drinking on their lunch break of course, and my uncle and cousin waltz in a few minutes later. Awesome - you only need to go to one place to see most people we still care about in Wheat Ridge.

Dad recommends the Titan (beer) and I recommend Colette (beer) paired with the classic burger. As dear little Whitney said with mouth-half-full, "You really can't screw up a burger." She darn right. Yum.

Oh! Pretty Karah! Dad and the cause for the next family wedding.

Sister, almost sister, sister. Only 16 missing.

Check out how into family reunion dad is...

Super cool bar, made extra-pinteresty by indoor icicle lights. Let's here it: Collective "AWWWWW!!!"

It's a family reunion!  AND: There is such thing as a free lunch.
Dad is super focused, as always.

"Dad! Lean in a bit... a bit further... okay, now smile! Perrrfeeccctt"

The logo that needs some lovin' to reflect the inside coolness. Amiright?

Diet plan FAIL

I was going to work out today after work. I've been pretty alright at keeping up with both cardio AND weight training despite my hatred for weights stemming from once being a muscle-head rock climber.

Then, I glanced over updates from my favorite bloggers, all of whom spent time in NYC at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2013. Ugh.

Some bloggers touched on how ridiculous the crowd of men who paid way too much for front-row tickets were, or how all of our boyfriends are now going to expect 24-pack abs (and that sucks). But most of them said somewhere in their over-glorifying posts that now they are "inspired to get out there and get fit."

Me? Well, shit. I'm never going to have toned muscles on my inner-hip (see above photo of previously unknown piece of anatomy, that being the inner-hip). Ever. Even if I ran a million miles a day and only ate vegetation, still wouldn't happen.

In the moment of frustration that evolved from my normally calm blog-reading, instead of exploding out of the door to grab my running shoes to put in 16 miles, all I could think about was how badly I was craving super disgustingly sugary macaroons. I don't even LIKE sugar anymore.

What? Really? Really.

I normally adore working out. It tends to solve all of my problems. But inner-upper-thigh toned-ness is a problem that will never be fixed by an evening workout. Damnit.

So, what's your favorite flavor of macaroon?

Eastside living part 1 (because I love writing series. Makes the creative process easier)

So I post a bunch of really awesome photos. Ok. My photo skills suck, but they are inherently better because one can't take a bad photo of Carson Peak. It's just not possible (photo below is indeed not Carson Peak).

However beautiful June Lake scenery tends to be, there are certain things that I don't take photos of because, well, that would be shocking to most. Other than the mountain views, this place takes some getting used to. There are elements that are unrefined. Yet to be refined. Lacking in refinement. My prim and proper mean grandma's worst nightmare, in other words.

"Wow, Jess. You live there. Give the place a break. It can't be that bad," you say.

Hum. Let's explore the one and only Tiger Bar.

Note: There are other bars in June Lake. But nobody frequents them. Most folks can walk to "el Tigre" which makes excessive drinking possible and, though not important for many Loopers, more responsible.

Plus, the drinks are stronger.

You walk into the Tiger, and most likely you will be sort of greeted by someone maybe if they happen to notice you. I would recommend just finding a place at the bar on a busier night.

Terry, the grumpy vet behind the bar with the second largest porn collection in the Eastern Sierra (he knows the guy with the biggest), will undoubtedly give you a hard time about your drink, no matter what you're ordering, especially if you're a blonde girl. Don't let it get to you. He's actually a really great guy, who promised to pay for all of his grandchildren's college tuition, which is why he is still working every night. Otherwise, the man would be sitting at home with his porn collection wife. Instead, he is stuck slinging drinks to you punks so his grandkids don't make great grandkids and instead go to college.

There will be exactly two to eight locals sitting at the bar, all semi-ignoring each other until non-locals walk in, in which case they will band together to ignore the out-of-towners, because socializing sucks. Especially here. Why would you want to meet someone new? You moved here to be surrounded by nature, fresh air, heavy machinery, cigarette smoke, beer cans, and your big screen tv. Don't expect to have anything resembling a conversation with a local, because all you will get is a invitation to step outside and get your ass kicked.

Funny thing is, we are all in the hospitality business. That's right. "We" hate visitors on our turf but can't live without them. The Tiger Bar is the best illustration of this. It's family friendly (because baby carriers fit well in the booths or on the bar itself), but nobody is going to quit dropping the "f" bomb just because you decided to bring your 5-year-old into our bar.

Wow. Why would anyone even go to this god-forsaken place? Well, it's not for the burgers, I can tell you that. I can't decisively say that I've had food poisoning from El Tigre, because I usually drink way too much to discount my vomiting on the food instead of the beer spiked with Tabasco and whipped cream (this actually happened once), but yea, the burgers aren't why we come here.

You should go to the Tiger Bar because it's never boring. It's also never friendly, but entertainment can't always be friendly. It's rough living on the eastside of the Sierra, and we aren't going to fake it. Well, I fake it all of the time. I even wore heels to work today. But most people, they ain't gonna fake it. They are just going to drink 17 1/2 Coors Originals, smoke a pack of cigarettes, play a few games of pool, pass out drunk (hopefully in their own bed), go to work the next day hung over, and then go straight to the bar after work to kill the hangover and talk about how bad working hung over is. Repeat x20.

When I write home about how I miss my poetry group in Boulder, now you know why.

XOXO.

Online shmoping

No, it's not a typo friends. Let's talk addiction.

Addiction in my family goes way back. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Most folks in my family are addicted to good things: work, working out... okay, basically just those two things. My dad works a lot and my mom is super fit. Perhaps those two things go hand-in-hand. My dad is rich and my mom is hot. Dad talks about my mom's butt really openly in the office and it's weird. Sorry mom, you didn't know that until just now, but it's pretty strange. You should talk to him about it... Glad you're all in love 'n stuff though. Git it.

ANYWAY... bigger issue in MY life (again, sorry for calling out your cute butt, mom, on the world-wide-web) would have to be the fact that both of my grandmas have shopping addictions.

Yep. One grandma is a garage-sale addict. She goes "Garagesaling". VERB. It's a VERB. And no, you aren't taking your sailboat to and from garages. Yea, you ARE spending every Thursday and Friday carrying around your pockets full of quarters to all of the neighbors' houses to buy their SHIT that they've decided that they don't need, but perhaps can convince other people they may need.

I love my Garage-saling grandma. She is way nicer than the other grandma. But she also has Levi jeans in every size from infant to size 68. Literally, there are towns in northern Nebraska that are outfitted in Levis from my grandma's quarters. The woman had to start her own little business to a) fund her Garagesaling addiction and b) get rid of all of the SHIT that she bought and will NEVER need. I haven't convinced my other family members to call TLC Hoarders to check out Nice Grandma's basement, but I'm not afraid to at some point. Size 68? Really? Luckily I've already been on TLC, or I'd totally call them... but that's for another post perhaps (if you want to find it, it's season 5, episode 19 "Amy's Outreach" of "Little People, Big World" I made them take it off the air because I wasn't being paid my loyalties. Bitches.)

My other grandma, the meaner, sassier, Fox News-watching, Cadillac driving version of my mother, did not have a Garagesaling addiction. No no no no. She has a Nordstrom addiction. When everyone else in my life told me shopping was a stupid waste of time and money, mean Grandma was meanwhile buying me my first thong and fur vest. Seriously. I blame my credit-card-on-file-online account on Nordstrom.com on mean Grandma. And I'm honestly not even mad. Despite the fact that she took me out of her will because I was living in sin with my NOW husband, then boyfriend, I still think she is great because she taught me that you can buy 1) glitter 2) fancy makeup 3) black and white outfits 4) thongs and if they make you feel better, it's money well spent. And, she taught me that fitting in is more important than being comfortable, so I grew up having NO friends that I actually liked. Oh well. At least I look classy. Fashion hurts. Beauty hurts worse. But somewhere in the end you benefit. Not sure how.

So back to the $28 candle....

What is that smell?

I've been confessing a lot lately. It feels pretty okay, so here it goes. Again. 

I spent $28 on a candle. That is votive-size. Diptyque. You win.

My mom reads this blog. I'm waiting for the call discussing my financial education background and how much better I was raised. 

But the candle smells awesome. 

Every time I light it, I try to imagine just burning a five dollar bill and how much more delightful this candle smells than burning, greasy cash handled by lots of potentially creepy people. My candle wasn't handled by creepy money-grubbing people. It was probably made by three hooded monks and two nuns in the northern-most part of a secluded monastery in Southeast Asia. Just like my favorite Bitters (but that is for another post). 

So, you are probably asking, "Jess, even if it smells PERFECT, WHY DID YOU BUY A $28 CANDLE?!?!?!?!"

The real reason is because I am a fool for indirect advertising. AKA: I read fashion blogs.

But MOoooommmmm! All the other bloggers are buying $28 candles! Why can't I? I just want to fit in!

That's right. Everyone else is doing it, and I thought that all of those really pretty fashion bloggers, with their perfect hair and really cute clothes, and shiny shoes, well, they probably smell really good. And their well-decorated houses smell really good. And I want my hunting-paraphernalia-ed house, with dog pee in the carpet and beer bottles from last nights' man-gathering to also smell pretty and GOOD. 

So I spent $28 on a candle. 

Hey, the shipping was free.

XOXO

Oh, well hello there!

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been a few winks since my last confession blog post.

When your mother texts you to 'update your blog', you know that, perhaps, your blog is failing. Fail. Okay.

So MOM. Here you go. I give you a photo of my always-gorgeous town (June Lake), and, my salute to capitalism. I'm working 60+ hours a week in job transition, and me and my dog are both in danger of some serious weight gain if I spend any more time in front of a computer.

Fortunately, the leaves are changing around here, so my newest hobby to keep my mind sharp is "leafer-dogding" with my car. The trick: come around a mountain-road-sharp-corner and try NOT to hit the tourist with 2 1/2 tripod legs in the street attempting to take THE perfect photo of yellow aspens.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to nearly-hit any leafers while simultaneously taking a photo of their stupid actions (people aren't stupid, they just do stupid things, right?).

Here's what they were trying to capture. (p.s. I took this photo while NOT STANDING IN the FRIKIN' ROAD!!!!!!)

Smooches.

Conundrum, part two

I bought a no-iron white shirt.

The instructions say not to iron it, but to take it promptly from the dryer.

My no-iron shirt has a wrinkle. 

I have an itch I cannot scratch. I need white-shirt cortisone cream, ASAP. 

The girl you wish you were on Spotify

We've all have that friend: the one that somehow due to her semi-abusive or blessed upbringing has the ability to find brand new music that nobody else can possibly dredge up from the depths of our poor, unartistic souls. Or maybe she just had parents that smoked a bunch of weed with Jimi Hendrix.

Enter Spotify. Hey, thanks social media-based-program-that-exemplifies-my-inability-to-garner-frikin-awesome-playlists-and-instead-listen-to-Alanis-Morsett-on-repeat.

Let's face it. Spotify has taken over my life, and not in an entirely bad way. I live on a baby music island. An island where only popular country music strives and spreads. All else dies from lack of intelligent hosts. Stealing playlists from friends in Chicago and L.A. equals lifeblood. Sweet sweet nectar of the gods.

It's gotten to that point. I feel particularly guilty for just stealing, not providing my own well-groomed playlists from my best friends from the next up-and-coming band, but lets face it, I steal. Like, steel steal. Hard. At one point I tried to spend half a day at work finding new bands that were 'hip', but want to know what happened? Every song was a brother of "Banana Pancakes." Laugh. Sure. But you know how this goes. Don't pretend you've never fallen into the "oh, I really felt connected to my upper Gluteus Maximus during my Vinyasa yoga class, and I'm pretty sure Alexi Murdoch's "Orange Sky" really brought out my emotions, and I just felt so... whole. You know?"

So we download it. And then play the song over and over. And over.

We are sick of the song, so we use a search engine to find similar songs. What we really find? Frikin' "Banana Pancakes." I'm sorry, but Jack, it's just not the same. When I'm really getting into my hip flexers, you just DON'T DO THE JOB. I'm on a glutard diet, and I can't really think about banana pancakes while stretching. What I should be thinking about is why the hell I'm stretching instead of running 18 miles. After all, it's almost winter. Screw banana pancakes. If I'm breaking the pledge, I'm putting chocolate chips in my pancakes.

With that, I have nothing more to say about Spotify except that you shouldn't join it unless you have a group of 3+ friends that are tragically involved in the music industry. Otherwise, let Pandora be your sad sad consolation prize.

Peace, love, rock and roll.

 P.S. Atmosphere has something to say about pancakes too. Enjoy. (and yes, I stole this song from a friend)

 

Tioga Pass closed September 21, and we had SNOW!

My apologies for interrupting your regularly scheduled program, but THIS just happened:

That's right. The first snow of the winter. On the last day of summer. Woke up to this view.

Those are some excited-to-fish fishermen. Fishin' in the dark steam.

MAX PHOTO BOMB!

Steamin. Cold. Summer.

Big Sur and Aretha Franklin. Just because.

California is crowded. A lot of people like a warm climate, an ocean next to mountains, that kind of shit. I get it. I am really more of a plain mountain person, but I willingly gave the vastest (word? not sure) body of water a shot this week. It wasn't half bad. 

And then we got to Big Sur. Where there were Big Trees. And you couldn't see or hear the ocean. So I felt more at home, and the cabin certainly helped make everything cozier. 

We stayed at the Big Sur Campgrounds and Cabins, which provided a welcome reprieve from... well... people, really. I don't think I particularly like people on my vacation. And sometimes ever. That's for another post, however (yey for the shelter of a computer screen and public forum that is the "blog", eh?). 

Clif and I unpacked slightly, leaving some things in our car for the hell of it, because they don't have bears on the coast (shot those bitches, took care of 'em all!), and leaving things in our car in novel, Watson. 

We walked along the creek, looking at rocks, and itty bitty pinecones from giant redwoods. Nature, winning YET again. Gosh. 

The night culminated in some seriously unserious chatting on the cute front porch while drinking 'native' wine and eating cheese from France or something. And olives from the Safeway olive bar. 

Delish. I went to sleep a happy woman. 

Hi. Let's talk about the fact that the Redwood next to our cabin is THE SIZE of our cabin. That is all.

Married one year, and I still think he is adorable. Mainly because of his hotness (hint: he reads this blog sometimes). 

The creek/river by our campground was low, it being September and all. But peaceful nonetheless.
AND I had two glasses of wine by the time we got here.
DOUBLE AND I really like nature.
TRIPLE AND nature likes me back (shhhh, it's a secret).

Couldn't you just eat this little guy right up? Not my husband, silly. The cone. The small small cone that makes
A HUGE FRIKIN' TREE.
Aretha Franklin said it best.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
(bitches)*


*implies implied content



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We turned left (South) on Highway 1, and found things.

So... we left Davenport in no grand hurry, and slowly made our way south. 

The most memorable (for me, at least) was our Moss Landing stop. Moss Landing, you ask? Yes, it is amazing. Clif literally screeched to a stop when I yelled out at him about Phalaropes and a fluttering of other shorebirds on the side of the highway. Turns out, I was right to scream. 

Right, I mean RIGHT, next to the dirt road was the most adorable Sea Otter, working his way through the shell of a muscle (or oyster, or something), so loud we could hear it from our car. I braved the traffic (there was none) and heroically ran across the road to get the first shot you see below. Because ... I'm a tourist. And, because I thought this was the only Sea Otter I was going to see on this trip. Of course, WRONG AGAIN JESS.

We come around the next corner, and *KAPLOOEY!*, there are more Sea Otters and some lions of the sea persuasion to boot. They were stinkin' cute, and I almost died, but Clif kept me hydrated, and caught my binoculars when I lost track of them grabbing for my camera with a high-powered lens. Whoa. It was so intense.

Clif saw the opportunity to walk toward humans as opposed to more cute fuzzy and feathery things, and we tried to spend 5 minutes watching surfers. That didn't last long, because surfers are like rock climbers, but on water, with less muscles. So I reached again for my faithful 2012 Eagle Optics 8x24 Rangers, and scoped out the shoreline past the surfers, and whoa and behold!!!! WHALES! Yep. I spotted whales. Jess-1, nature-1 million. Okay, nature always wins. But still, I felt like for a moment I was on top of it. Like, really, on top of seeing things. As a good naturalist should be.

Then, Clif dragged me away, for good reason of course. We ended up slurping down oysters and drinking white wine down the street at a working fish market. And heaven creeped up on us, and stayed a whole 30 minutes.

Then, we were off again.

We tried lunch at a false fisherman's warf, where a cruise ship had just dumped (think pooped) a million people on 8 restaurants and about 3 candy shops per cruise ship patron. SO MANY CANDY SHOPS. That is why America is fat. Cruise ships and candy shops. 

Anyway, we decided that cities were not for us, and booked it to Big Sur, where we pulled up as the sun was setting to the Big Sur Campgrounds and Cabins. OMG. WHAT ENSUED IS FOR TOMORROW. We basically just drank wine and ate cheese, but still, there are more photos for tomorrow. For now, enjoy water photos.

Or else.

The little guy. All by himself. I contemplated taking him home to make a hat out of him (AH! PETA I WAS KIDDING!)

Seals have really thin skin on their flippers and have to warm themselves in the sun all day.
News flash: My feet get cold, but nobody lets me lounge by the seashore.

Surfer, surfer, wave, no more surfer.

OH! There are  more of them!

Long-billed Curlew, that sent me into a tizzy. I mean, look at the little cutie!!

You can't see the cruise ship in the background. Because it sank with all the fatties and their candy (kidding!).

Coastline. Life is so hard.

Clif. And our cabin, and my new car. What? We stayed here. All night. Cutest thing ever?
Yes, is the answer.

Davenport - the one in California

Continuing on our adventure down Highway 1, Clif surprised me with "Captain Davenport's Retreat" - which turned out to be the corner suite at the Davenport Roadhouse hotel and restaurant. Fairly swanky for such a small town. The suite was awesome, with floor to ceiling windows on two whole walls, perfect for beach viewing.

The town itself consists of the hotel where we stayed, a really adorable and no-nonsense bakery (see photo below of Whale City Bakery), and the sketchiest general store I've entered in quite some time. I'm fairly certain the bookkeeper was in the back room chain smoking cigarettes, and had been for the past 20 years. Anyway, we bought a bottle of wine there for $11.99, which is reasonable in that area.

We headed last-minute to the Beauregard Vineyard's tasting room, where Clif and I were educated more by our fellow wine-taster than the mostly-toasted gentleman pouring our wines. It took a bit longer than normal to do the tasting because drunky kept getting distracted by pretty much anything that moved, or didn't move for that matter. "ooh! a fly! Ohh, a glass of wine! Oh! I told a stupid joke!" You get the idea. Eventually we bought a bottle of wine because they waved the wine tasting fee.

Turns out, the Davenport Roadhouse closes for Monday dinner, which was THE ONE NIGHT we were there. And, as I mentioned before, the town is small. Clif and I found a pretty severely hipster joint in Santa Cruz, called 515 Kitchen. The place vomited hipsters all over my overly-prepared basil and homemade chartreuse-orange-monk-inspired bitters, but I drank it and loved it. Actually, despite the hipsterness, this place had excellent customer service and top-notch food. On top of that, we had called to make reservations and mentioned it was our 1 year anniversary. When we arrived, the hostess informed us that they had a staff meeting about where to seat us in the restaurant, couldn't decide, so they had reserved TWO tables for us to pick from. Okay. Kinda weird but really cute. And we got to sit on a couch for dinner, which I liked a lot. 

The best part of Davenport was the short walk to the beach. Once we arrived home from Santa Cruz, we grabbed a bottle of wine and a blanket, walked 3 minutes across the street to a beach, which we shared with 2 other groups, but for all intents and purposes were alone. 

It was a perfect evening; romantic, peaceful, full-mooned and only slightly colder. AMAZING.

The next morning, we grabbed quick breakfast sandwiches from the Whale City Bakery, and had great service and yummy breakfast. 

Then.... we turned left. On Highway 1. Which doubles as south. That's the way we went.

More tomorrow.

Look! They make hydrants in yellow!
Oh, and our room was on the top floor in the corner.

The restaurant had pretty decent food for lunch. I had pizza, because I'm
dairy and gluten free. Duh.

The Roadhouse and hwy 1. The beach is just right of that car. Small-town lookin'.

The Bakery! For the only place to eat in town that was open, it was GREAT.

Half Moon Bay to Davenport

Day two of our anniversary vacation began with a sunny wake-up at the San Benito House in Half Moon Bay. We loved staying here for its quirkiness - small, older rooms above a great bar space made for a relaxed feel. 

We grabbed a cup of coffee and walked around the back garden area this morning, watching hummingbirds flit around to the plentiful flowers. 

We got on the road after enjoying my favorite, lox and bagels, at another quirky place: a downtown coffee shop that was the only place open at 9 am on a Monday in Half Moon. 

Then, we took four hours to drive to Davenport, stopping at pretty much every beach and overlook to enjoy the views of eroding cliffs and crashing waves. Clif knows I love to randomly stop at state parks (especially in California) and made a point of doing so, I think because he loves me or something. So below you get photos of a few parks where we stopped, but nowhere near all of the ones we visited.

We are driving into Santa Cruz tonight for dinner, and the off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Big Sur tomorrow. We may just stay here forever. Yup. 

A crisp morning nook for a cup of coffee.

The back patio of the San Benito House would be a great event spot.

One portion of a GIANT mural while walking around town. Remarkable.

One foot to my right was a sheer drop-off. That's love.

My favorite beach along the way. We saw two Oyster Catchers (birds), which was new for me!