Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog! I feel like it's been forever since my last post, but it's only been a few weeks. Two weeks ago, I took a trip along the California coast to celebrate my birthday! So, let's just jump right into this post because I have a feeling it's going to be a long one.

Saturday morning we got up, got our things together and began our road trip north. We made a pitstop in Santa Barbara to grab lunch at a place called On the Alley. Russell and Lyle got fish and chips and I got a fish sandwich. It was super delicious, and if you find yourself in the area, I definitely recommend it!

From there, we got back on the road towards Big Sur. I honestly expected to make a straight drive there but that was not the case at all. I feel like we stopped at least once every hour. One spot we stopped at was Elephant Seal Vista Point in San Simeon. It was the funniest thing to see so many Elephant Seals just being SUPER lazy and fat and cute! Lyle said they were just giant Sadies (my dog, if you didn't know) because all she does is lay around and sleep all day.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early, grabbed some breakfast and headed out to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. The waters of Big Sur are so unbelievably blue it was unreal. We spent a good amount of time (more than we anticipated) exploring this beautiful area. We watched sea lions lay around and spotted another otter trying to break open a shell with a rock. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen (I love otters!), and we could actually hear him smashing the rock down with the shell on his belly. So cute!

After spending a few hours exploring Point Lobos, we headed out to grab some Chinese food for lunch. We had a bit of trouble finding somewhere that wasn't closed or packed for Mother's Day lunch. The restaurant we found was basically empty (don't worry, the reviews were still good as was the food!) and we had super fast service, which was beneficial to us as we were in a hurry to get to our next location.

After lunch, we got back on the road south towards Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. On our way, of course we had to make a stop at Bixby Bridge. There were so many people here getting their photos in and enjoying the view. If heights aren't your thing, you might not enjoy driving this bridge or seeing just how high you are off the ground.

Once we finished up there, we continued on our way to JPB State Park. We found parking on the side of the road and headed into the park and onto the trail towards McWay Falls. It was a really cool trail because it lead you through a tunnel underneath the highway to the other side. Upon walking up the trail to the falls, the view is just absolutely STUNNING and it only gets better the further you walk. We took a few minutes to stare and take in the falls before heading on to the rest of the trail. We were super excited to see water spouts out in the distance. It turns out there were humpback whales in the area and they were super close to shore! It was such an awesome experience to see whales out in the wild.

When we decided we had spent enough time whale watching and being mesmerized by the bright blue waters, we went back on the trail to find another one to explore. The Ewoldsen Trail is a pretty long trail, therefore we only walked about a mile into it. We hung around for a while and walked across fallen trees over the flowing stream. It's always fun to explore nature.

Finally, we finished up our time at JPB State Park and headed back to our hotel because the boys wanted to catch the next showing of Captain America.

Monday morning definitely called for some coffee. We stopped at Starbucks for some fuel and then jumped on the road straight to San Francisco.  Be on the lookout for the next blogpost about our San Francisco adventures! As always, thanks for reading about my adventures! I hope you enjoyed it and let me know what you think! xo