Highway 1

After leaving Monterey, I headed south on Highway 1. Such a beautiful drive going through Big Sur, Point Lobos, Ragged Point, Lucia, Bixby Bridge. I must have stopped a million times to take photos. I finished my drive at San Simeon, where I stopped to photograph the Elephant Seals. If you've never seen the Elephant Seals, put this on your to do list. They are located at the beach (rookery) just down the mountain from Hearst Castle (another must do!)

After my photo journey was over, I headed east into the mountains towards Bakersfield where I would spend the night before heading onto my next stop in Boulder City.

Monterey

after saying goodbye to Carrie, I drove to Monterey, where I was staying for 2 days. I use to live in Monterey when I was a young girl (my dad was stationed there) and I have fond memories of the area. the last time I was there was about 9 years ago when Dillon was 10 and we did a month long journey of driving up and down the coast; ending up in Las Vegas where we spent 2 nights at The Luxor (his choice) - as Dillon was born in Las Vegas.

my arrival in Monterey was met by COLD weather and high winds. the sand from the dunes was streaming across the highway. It was fierce. I arrived in time for dinner and then I hit the hay, as I was exhausted. The next day i drove all around Monterey. I went to the aquarium, went beach combing, drove through Pacific Grove and along the 17 mile drive to Carmel. Such a beautiful area.

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a quick visit with Carrie

On my way to Monterey, I did a quick stop over to visit with art friend, Carrie, of Hip Chick Designs. We've been facebook friends and then met up in person at Artfest.

Her store is just wonderful! It's located in Benicia, CA. Her shoppe (along with other artists) is located down by the water in what use to be naval facility buildings. She took me on a quick tour to see who the other tenants were and for our tour, we both wore tutus. (Carrie is known for putting friends and even strangers into tutus).

I bought a wonderful HUGE book from Carrie (she's wrapping it up in one of the pics). It's a bound book of the New York Times newspaper circa 1936. I can't wait to use it in collage.

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just to let you know, Carrie, is teaching a couple of classes for Art is You in Benicia. One of her classes is how to make these fabulous wings! If I was going, I would definitely take this class, because I always need another pair of wings!