Highway 1

Sara, Katy, and I decided a couple of months ago that we needed to just take a breather from life for a couple of days.  We thought it would be fun to stay at a hostel for a night while we explored up and down the coastline a little bit.  We concluded that the hostel at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, about an hour and a half away, was our best bet so we made our reservations for this past weekend.  We had a very loose itinerary for the trip so if we saw something on the side of the road that we wanted to check out, we could do it and not have to fight time.

The first thing we spotted was a group of greenhouses near Half Moon Bay that had a sign that read, "Carnivorous Plants."  You can't see a sign like that and not stop and take a look.  Katy bought a couple of succulents from one of the other greenhouses dedicated to less violent flora and then we were on our way again!

Around noon, we saw an English pub on the side of the road and thought that it was high time to have some lunch.  Katy said that the views along the California coast reminded her of her time in the British Isles so it seemed appropriate.

It's an inside joke but Katy finally found her amputee!

Because I'm a sucker for a good landscape, we stopped a couple of times along the side of the road just to take pictures of the yellow flowers and the green grass and the blue sea.  I may have let out a few sighs of contentment and some potentially annoying exclamations of "It's so pretty!" throughout the whole drive. But I just couldn't contain myself!  It was so beautiful!

Our next stop was actually on our itinerary.  In Pescadero, there is a little goat farm called Harley Farms. First of all, Pescadero is a very picturesque little coastal town that was established in 1856 so it appealed to both my historical and romantic sensibilities.  And despite my professed dislike for animals, I actually get ridiculously excited when I see miniature versions of larger beasts.  So as you can imagine, my tender heart may have thumped a bit more than usual when I saw a sign saying that there were over 150 baby goats at Harley Farms that day.  And the three of us are big fans of goat cheese and bread so we made sure to stop into the little Harley Farms shop to try some samples.

I tried to be friends with this donkey but he...didn't really react to my supplications.

The adult goats.

And the cute little baby goats!

Just down the road in Pescadero was the Pie Ranch.  While the establishment definitely has some political views we don't agree with, I can't really fault their pies in any way.

It started to rain a little bit so we took shelter under these awesome trees.

Around 3:30, we checked in at the hostel and walked around the lighthouse and down onto the beach called Whaler's Cove.  My phone ran out of battery just before we went down to the beach so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was beautiful.  There were some sea anemones down on the rocks and a couple of cave-like areas to explore.

If you look closely, you can see some seals laying on the rocks.

I accidentally photographed this seagull several times.  No offense to the seagull but this is probably its best angle ;).

Such a beautiful place!

It was both slightly rainy and sunny so there was almost a constant rainbow all day.

We ate dinner in downtown Pescadero, picked up some bread and goat cheese for breakfast the next morning, and then drove along the coast while the sun was setting.  We stopped in the small city of Davenport, California for dessert before turning around and heading back to the hostel to bunk for the night.  We were in a six-person bedroom but no one else had checked in as of yet.  We got ready for bed and then played my historical trivia game for a couple of hours until a couple of other women checked into the room and spoiled our fun.  How dare they! ;)

I'm not sure if any of us slept very well.  I struggle with insomnia anyway but staying in a strange place aggravates my already less than healthy relationship with sleep.  I was still awake a couple of hours after everyone else had fallen asleep and got to hear Sara wake up and freak out because she couldn't remember where she was.  HAHAHAHAHA!  The ladies in the room that we didn't know treated poor Sara like a child after that.  ("It's okay, sweetie.  Did you have a bad dream?")  I finally fell asleep around 1:30 and maybe got four hours of shuteye before I woke up for no reason at 5:30.  I waited for everyone else to wake up and then we got ready to go back home.  We checked out of our room and then ate our breakfast overlooking the ocean.  I could get used to waking up to that view!

It was a great little trip and it reinforced my belief that the California coast rivals some of the prettiest places in the world.  I love my home state!