Just a little trip up the coast

[BobM]

This is a chronological slideshow of our 11-day trip we just took up the coast. We made no plans or reservations and followed our nose along the way. First, just for the fun of it we took PCH from Huntington Beach to Ventura where we had to temporarily be on the 101 to Carpentaria State Campground and we were lucky enough to get a spot. HWY 1 was an easy drive except around LAX where we drove under the runway. Santa Monica and Malibu were real nice.
From Carpentaria, our next stop was Avila beach with a side trip to Los Olivos, but we could not get a spot. So we went to Morro Bay State Campground and stayed two nights. We really love that campground. Next we went to Monterey via the 101 to avoid the Big Sur fire. What we didn’t know is that Monterey was in the middle of car week with all kinds of cars everywhere. The big downside was we wanted to stay at a hotel but most were all booked for the car dudes. We got into a Best Western in Pacific Grove next to the 17-mile drive for more than double their normal rate. But we were within walking distance of Spanish Bay and lots of wild deer. Our second night we stayed at Veterans Memorial campground up the hill through a neighborhood. A few interesting homeless people were there.
The next day we got on the lottery for to camp at Seaview on the beach in Aptos, just south of Santa Cruz. We had an awesome pulled pork sandwich at http://www.aptosstbbq.com/index.html and visited Santa Cruz.
The next day, on a lark, we went to the Big Basin redwoods and got a camping space. We have never been there before and it was wonderful.
Next we went to Pinnacles National Park, one of our country’s most recent. It was the most boring National Park we have visited. To be fair it was way too hot (mid 90’s) to hike so we may have missed something. Lots of Quail, Turkey’s and Deer.
On the way home we camped in Morro Bat and Carpentaria. Along this whole trip, we took some interesting roads and rarely saw other cars and the views were spectacular