Last fall I decided that I should plan a trip for January because I knew that by then, like every January, I would be itching to get out of dodge. Around that same time Rob found out that his company was going to be changing their vacation and sick time policies in the months ahead. He also found out that he was able to cash out a bunch of his time and for the first time ever, due to not needing any time off for a baby birth, he had enough vacation to pay out. We only thought it was fair to use vacation payout money for a vacation so we were set!

We knew we wanted to do a couple’s getaway this time after two vacations straight in Disneyland. We haven’t even had 1 night away in 4 1/2 years and we were ready.  I wanted to go somewhere warmer than northern Utah and it couldn’t be far because we didn’t have too many days to devote to this. I’ve always wanted to drive California’s Highway 1 and Rob was stoked to be out in nature and have some awesome landscape to photograph so our decision was pretty easy. We’d fly into SFO, base ourselves in Monterey, and explore the coast from Half Moon Bay down to Julie Pfeiffer Burns State Park. This covers about 162 miles of pristine coastline.

Valentine’s morn, Rob’s parents came over to watch the girls and we took Nate to school on the way to the airport. We flew into San Francisco, rented a Jetta, and started our drive south. Rob actually forgot a cable so he was unable to plug in his phone in the car which meant NO MUSIC the entire 4 days! For him, that’s huge. I didn’t mind…

It wasn’t long before we just HAD to pull over so that we could gawk and feel the sea breeze and smell the sea smell. It was incredible. We both just kept shaking our heads in wonderment. How could we possibly, after only a short time, have our feet on the edge of a continent? And how could we possibly be blessed enough to behold it? It felt so surreal yet natural.

One funny thing, I borrowed Nate’s binoculars that we got him for Christmas. He was pretty trepidatious about lending them to me and conceded only after I promised to always wear them around my neck so they couldn’t fall off a cliff 🙂

Rob wanted to take the power lines out of this shot but I like them. It draws the eye down the coast. Besides, it’s the last time we saw power lines along the shore for the rest of the drive.

Of course I have to thank, wholeheartedly, Rob’s parent’s for taking our 3 crazies for us. We can never pay them back for the beautiful experience they gave us. We love you both very much.