california trip 2010

This is from the beginning of the trip To get to Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park we took roads through the mountains instead of highways. It took a lot more time, but it was worth it! I tried to condense 950 pictures into 35 I picked some of my favorites…I hope you like them!

We got to see a lot of different landscapes…this is all the same day, same drive, but many many different views.

Another landscape change…it was all so pretty! I went a little picture crazy

We stopped here to drink some coffee, take a little break. It was a small town of about 300 in the middle of the mountains. This store had everything! We asked the owner and she told us about the local artists that would bring things to display in her store. It was cool, but it was just weird to see how differently people live compared to us. This is why we love small towns

This was an unusual landscape, but it was one of those things that you couldn’t stop looking at it…it was strange

Here we’re getting close to the park

A little market on the way. Sometimes we’d drive for hours without seeing anyone! And then out of nowhere a small town would pop up in the middle of the mountains

I’ll start throwing in some pictures of my mom and I

Here we are in the park. We drove along a scenic byway…there were about a million turnouts so you could stop and look around…we stopped pretty much every time And met some very nice people who didn’t mind taking out picture hehe.

Here you can see that we were gradually getting higher and higher. We were at about 7000 feet.

Hehe, we forgot to use flash so you can’t see me, but this is Roaring Falls! Very pretty…but I was getting wet.

We’d take sandwiches, water and chips with us…so this is where we sat to eat with our feet in the cool water

Once we started heading towards the coast, we got to a small town called San Juan Bautista…it was all historical but very pretty! We went into an antique shop and asked the woman where her favorite restaurant was and she sent us here It was delicious!

Outside of the restaurant.

This building is from 1789…or 1798..one of those It is currently an antique shop.

More buildings from the town

This is Monterey Bay. Beautiful place!!! If you’ve never been it’s definitely worth visiting. And those are little sea otters in the water…they were cute but loud. :p

This is at Point Lobos State Park. It was full of trails, just like the national parks, but these were along the coast. It was freezing!! But incredibly beautiful! We walked and walked and walked, but you can never get tired of the postcard-looking scenery

Point Lobos State Park

Here we went a little more inland and started arriving at the vineyards.

Again, we started going through small towns, which we loved!! It was cool to see how others lived.

We loved their little markets

Beautiful towns….and very very relaxing. I’d be an incredibly lazy person if I ever lived there.

This was my favorite town!! It’s called Solvang. It’s a small Danish town about 30-40 minutes inland…the whole town was just adorable

Solvang windmill

These were everywhere!! And we bought some homemade jam at a Farmers Market. I wanted to live here, Mrs. Lee!!

Yummy yummy yummy home cooked meal

Best Danish I’ve ever eaten!

This was a town called Ojai. I’d heard a lot of great things about this place so we stopped by and…ok…if you ever want to relax, spend a day at a spa, meditate in a garden...this is the place to go! It was beautiful and…I found the BEST bookstore

Read the sign in the picture

A bunch of book we’re lined up all around the bookstore…it was like book heaven! We went back the next day and inside….

It was like a maze of books!...but they had EVERYTHING I think we came back with more weight in books than clothes.

I found the headquarters in Santa Monica!

Well…we stopped to eat on the coast because we got hungry and it was such a beautiful day….but a bird ate my sandwich :p

This is where we sat to eat

We ended in Laguna Beach with incredible sunsets…but chilly weather Hope you liked it! Miss you!!!