Day 3: Monterey

I'm the worst you guys. I literally get texts urging me to update more often and I just keep forgetting. I'm sorry. But alas, here I am with another update. After our drive from Santa Cruz and lots of sleeping in our hotel, we woke up on Mother's Day and headed to Point Lobos State Reserve. If you've never heard of Point Lobos, look it up now. It's one of the most beautiful places in the entire world. Probably.

This is the view walking in. I mean, really.

You have to pay to park. It's $10 but totally worth it, especially because we parked alllll the way in the back of the park. I believe we parked by the Cypress Trail, but you could always park alongside Highway 1 and walk into the park. Heads up, it's a long walk, so bring comfortable shoes and water. There are a ton of trails throughout the park, but we walked the Cypress one. I wore sandals so it was quite the experience as there are few (if any) sidewalks and mostly rock/stone steps. I only tripped once. Go me! 

So Point Lobos has the bluest, prettiest water I've ever seen in North America. And lots of cliffs to take pictures on. Like this one.

Celebrating not falling

We walked/climbed the trails around for a bit and found this beautiful cove down by the water. Climbing down was extremely difficult as it was a bit slippery, and the "sand" is actually tons of super smooth (read: easy to slip on) tiny rocks. From far away it looked like black sand but was breathtaking either way.

The best part about the cove (besides me fulfilling my lifelong dream of being a mermaid) was the SEA LIONS. Or seals. I think both. Quite honestly I forget, but LOOK AT THEM

YOU ARE SO CUTE

There were at least five or six just swimming and jumping around in the water, and they got super close to the shore. At one point Naomi was taking pictures of me and the sea lions/seals were just chilling a few feet away from me and I had no idea. I wanted to take them home and cuddle with them.

Mermaid cove: angle 1

We (sadly) left the seals/sea lions and climbed up another trail  to continue walking through the park. The views are stunning. I wish we would have walked more but we really weren't prepared for proper hiking. There was a friendly older guy who worked at the park and had a few telescopes (or something) set up to see the sea lions and seals a bit more clearly. The guides at the park all seemed very educated and like they genuinely loved and cared for the reserve. 

Mermaid cove: angle 2, also where the guide was located

After a few hours we left the park and headed to lunch at the Monterey Fisherman's Wharf. It's mostly restaurants and cafes, little gift shops and a lot of boats. Whale watching tours also leave from here. We had lunch at the London Bridge Pub and I ordered the cottage pie (basically, Sherpherd's pie) which was amazing. I loooove cottage pie so if it's on the menu at a restaurant, theres a 99% chance I'll order it. After lunch we wandered to the little farmer's market type shop they had. It was adorable, and they also had a cafe where the daily specials for lunch sounded incredible. They also had my favorite specialty cheese brand Cowgirl Creamery and this adorable vegetable set up:

Almost cuter than the seals. Almost.

After lunch we headed to Trader Joes, picked up some snacks, wine and cupcakes (we're total girls) and headed back to our hotel. Unfortunately the hotel had some sort of water issue in the building we were in, so as soon as we got back we had to switch rooms to the other building on site. It was a bit of an inconvenience but we ended up with a room that had a patio overlooking the pool and was surrounded by beautiful palm trees and plants. We ordered sushi from the Japanese restaurant that is next door but also basically connected to the dining room where the hotel serves breakfast. The sushi was soooo good and we enjoyed it with our wine on our gorgeous patio. It was the perfect evening.

Next: Monterey (day 2), Big Sur and San Simeon

XO,

Casey