After a couple of recent vacations where the fun quotient didn't meet the financial cost, we planned a different trip - one closer to home that was anchored with close friends. In short, we spent ten days driving the California coast from the bay area to Santa Barbara. The drive up through the Central Valley was awash in ripening fruits, crop dusters, and two girls breaking the monotony with a DVD player...
We drove straight from Los Angeles to our friends' house in Mountain View - near San Jose. Noam & Rachel are gracious hosts and nature-lovers extraordinaire. On the first day of our vacation, they prepared a wonderful homemade breakfast then took us with their horses for a ride/hike in beautiful Pescadero Creek State Park... 
Shortly after leaving the parking area, we are in a grand old forest all by ourselves and surrounded by massive redwood trees. Savannah has spent a lot of time on horses, but this was her first water-crossing. Rachel's horse (Juliet) seemed to know Savannah was a newbie and took control. Note the paparazzi in the background...
After the girls & horses were safely across, Noam and Lesli spontaneously engaged in reality show re-enactments: here is King of the Log...
Noam figured since Charlotte was driving, she knew where they were going. Charlotte figured since it was Noam's neighborhood, he knew where they was going. As they sorted it out with a map, Lukka hid her smirk by pretending to graze... 
Eventually the teriffic troika got on the right trail...
Every horse has a vice. Juliet's? She grazes inappropriately. Here, Rachel vainly tries to help Juliet fit in by grazing, too... 
Nearing our picnic grounds, Rachel cracked open a cold beer. Ever curious, Juliet took a sniff and decided that beer is not to her liking...
At our picnic grounds we stuffed ourselves with goodies, including some veggies we brought along from our garden. Feeling refreshed, Rachel & Lesli saddle up and take their equine friends for a spin... 
The girls found the local creek was just the right temperature to cool off... 
I took this picture and I don't know if that sunbeam is devine blessing or the rifle-sights of a DEA agent who suspects us of narco-traffiking. either way, it makes a nice picture... 
Super heroines posing on the logs they've slain... 
Back at the cars, Savannah pledges her undying love to Juliet. Truly these two have a friendship that will last a lifetime...
We begged to go with Noam & Rachel to drop off the horses because we all wanted to meet their mule, Tioga. On the way over a twisty mountain road, all 6 of us watched a motorcyclist attempt to pass on a blind curve then wreck right in front of us. We stopped to make sure he was okay. Lesli gave him a piece of her mind, too. Anyway, Tioga spent 20 years hauling cargo around Yosemite until Rachel bought his freedom for $100 U.S. dollars. You know the reputation of a mule? Well here is a match made in heaven... 
After a restful night at Noam & Rachel's (and another great homemade breakfast) we drove to Elkhorn Slough to kayak. We rode down from Mountain View east of the mountains and the temperatures along the way were hot - 106 at one point! We crossed over to the ocean side and it dropped faster than 1-degree per mile. At the slough it was a brisk 66! Here are Noam & Rachel. To paraphrase Rachel: Noam is the engine, she is the hood ornament (grin!)
My hood ornament is Charlotte. For months leading up to our trip, CCK told me she wanted to see a sea otter. Here they are - my sweetie and a couple of the marine rodents off the bow...
When sea lions decide to haul-out, they do it together. The sensory overload of these behemoths (sight, sound and smell) took me back to my days in NYC commuting on the B-train... 
Even fashion models kayak... 
With great reluctance we bid adieu to our great bay-area hosts and set up our next camp (literally) at a state park just outside legendary Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz: home of surfing, hippies and vampires. A couple of young ones floated into our campground for s'mores...
Monday morning & Savannah models the latest in day-wear fashion. Note the not-so-homemade breakfast in her hands!
Dan loves looking at maps. He stares at one the way a cat watches a bird. We didn't know there was a covered bridge in Santa Cruz until he saw "covered bridge park" on the map. Naturally we had to investigate...
Charlotte on the bridge re-creating a 1970's album cover (?)
SBK in the bridge. She made the tie-dye shirt herself!
Our campground is home to a fantastic old-growth Redwoods forest. Inexplicably, loggers left this grove of Redwoods. The obligatory diameter cut and a close-up of the timeline...
Words don't do justice to nature this grand...
You see Charlotte in background? She is about to go into the hollow tree and find out her father is Darth Vader. Meanwhile, fashion models wait out front...
Another tree with a fire-hollowed center that is so big all four of us were inside. A century ago there was a wedding in here. Seriously.
still in the tree. The 'ceiling' was 20 feet high...
massive, gorgeous things...
The map didn't tell us Santa Cruz had a blow hole, but the sound as we drove by was unmistakable.
Santa Cruz: come for the blow hole, stay for the sea cave!
Okay, Santa Cruz doesn't have a volcano, but it does have a great, old-fashioned beach boardwalk with rides, games, candy...everything to make a perfect summer day. So we hit it like Samson hitting a Philistine...
The roller-coaster 'Hurricane' is about to start & Charlotte shows a flicker of nervous excitement...
Savannah enjoying the Sea Swings at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk...
The food offerings were so wonderfully awful I had to include an edited montage. I love the fine print on the first one. Let me see, I've already ordered the perfect trifecta of artery cloggers...what the hell, add bacon & make it a grand slam!
yes, we ate at 'Hot Dog on a Stick'...too bad Dan's mom couldn't be with us!
Order 3 and get a defibrillator free!
More rides! Lesli & the girls on the Sky Glider...
...and the Tsunami...
The Tsunami made Lesli's gills a little green (Dan gets queasy in a rocking chair), so the girls did "Freefall" without us...
The Giant Dipper is a 1920s wooden roller-coaster. Charlotte liked it (though she didn't see much!)
If you're ever on a roller coaster and the Fashion Models are sitting directly behind you, be sure to pose like a Maori warrior and take a self-portrait on the big drop...
9:40pm. Our campground closes in 20 minutes and we're stuck high atop the ferris wheel.
Gotta love these smiles...
We made it to the campground before the gate closed and said goodbye to Santa Cruz Tuesday morning. In Spreckels, we stopped at The Farm. This giant farmer shows off his pair of giant cabbages (I think)...
We checked into the Seaside Embassy Suites. It was like a dorm for vacationing familes from everywhere. A couple miles away is beautiful Monterey and its vaunted aquarium...
This photo was taken at 1:30pm in late June under bright sunshine and we are all wearing warm jackets. Mark Twain wasn't kidding!
After the aquarium and Cannery Row, we rested our tired feet by taking a turn on 17-mile drive - the famed roadway of Pebble Beach. We were looking for majestic scenery and blue-bloods (grin!)...
The famed Lone Cypress...
...and the 18th hole of famed Pebble Beach golf course...
We were hanging around the Clubhouse at Pebble Beach. We all adopted English accents and hoity-toity names to keep from being 'out-ed' as the po'folk we really are (all except for Charlotte - we agreed her name was hoity-toity enough). Here is "Biff", teeth tightly clenched...
On our way out of Monterey on Thursday we stopped at the photogenic Carmel Mission...
Somewhere south of Carmel (nobody can agree where) the Shangri-La called Big Sur begins. For us it was Point Lobos State Reserve. Here is Savannah's picture of a dear behind...er, deer behind...
even the insects pose here...
CCK atop South Point with Sea Lion Rock below... 
Being geeks, we brought 3 pairs of binoculars and saw dolphins, sea otters, seals & sea lions...
at times, it almost felt like a movie set, or a Disney themepark...
North Point, Point Lobos State Reserve. sublime.
If only the picture could relay the air quality: fresh off the Pacific and lightly scented by cypress...
The depression-era bridges along Highway 1 in Big Sur are engineering marvels both beautiful and functional. Here is the famous Bixby Creek bridge. And Fashion Models...
Okay, when Dan made our reservation at Fernwood Resort, he knew they had regular campgrounds and we brought our tent, but when he heard they have tent-cabins, well, he was hooked. The girls were good sports. Here are Lesli and Charlotte in front of our "Tabin"...
Lotsa room and even a bunk-bed in every tent-cabin...
Literally outside the door of our Tabin is the Big Sur river. By June the runoff had tapered down to make it the Little Sur river, which was just fine for SBK and CCK who could be heard giggling for miles as they floated down the stream on inner-tubes...
Gotta love this smile...
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like a tent-cabin...
The guys who rate hiking trails irritate me. Two trails rated "mildly strenuous" can be entirely different. Here are Savannah & Lesli pushing their way towards Pfeiffer Falls on a trail that is described as "short, almost flat through shady redwood groves." This is the only picture where SBK couldn't muster the energy for the Fashion Model pose. Charlotte is visible in the distance, complaining loudly...
The reward for our travails was a view of the falls in a cool, shady redwood grove...
After many more miles of heavenly natural beauty, we arrived in San Simeon for our afternoon tour of Hearst Castle. Built in the 1920's, William Randolph Hearst's "enchanted hill" evokes highly polarized opinions...
Drinking Nymph - a bronze in the assembly room. We expected more imaginative nomenclature...
On Saturday we saw young elephant seals jousting on the beach. A fence keeps tourists pretty far away. We don't have a telephoto lens, so Dan shot this through the binoculars...
And so our great vacation ended. It was fantastic to spend 10 days together. The fact that our hosts were so wonderful and locations so scenic only added to the immense satisfaction. May all your days be like a California vacation! 
