The Great 2022 California Expedition: Part 4 - The Finale

Hey Everyone - 

Thanks for joining us for this, our final installment of The Great 2022 California Edition. I hope you've been enjoying the trip.

Day 10 - Big Sur

So, for our last full day on the ranch, we had massages scheduled at the spa - Glenn in the morning, and me in the afternoon. The spa is right next to the pool area, which is not a bad hangout spot.

We didn't go swimming, but did use this infinity hot tub overlooking the vineyards.

Anyway, in between massages, we decided to take a scenic drive through Big Sur. FYI - according to Wikipedia - "Big Sur is a rugged stretch of California’s central coast between Carmel and San Simeon. Bordered to the east by the Santa Lucia Mountains and the west by the Pacific Ocean, it’s traversed by narrow, 2-lane State Route 1."

The whole distance of Big Sur is 90-some miles, but we only went a fraction of that. Still, breath-taking scenery as you will see. Not much commentary on these, so just scroll through and enjoy.

These little ground squirrels were everywhere - standing up like this so Glenn thought at first they were prairie dogs. When I looked more closely at this pic, I discovered a snake in the foreground. Further zooming in confirmed it. Can you see it?

We drove out to the Bixby Creek Bridge and then turned around and headed back. Again, according to Wikipedia - "Bixby Creek Bridge, also known as Bixby Canyon Bridge, on the Big Sur coast of California, is one of the most photographed bridges in California due to its aesthetic design, "graceful architecture and magnificent setting". It is a reinforced concrete open-spandrel arch bridge."

You can imagine that building this thing must have been a major architectural feat.

So, on the way home, we spotted this building on the mountain-side, which turned out to be the Highlands Hyatt.

We drove up and checked it out, and decided to return for dinner at their restaurant, appropriately named "Pacific's Edge."

Can't really do the view justice with these pics. The staff was saying sometimes they see whales chasing sea lions from here.

Anyway, we had a lovely dinner here (I had the mushroom risotto) and the waiter (Colin - nice Irish lad) gave us free champagne and dessert for our anniversary.

That's (Almost) All, Folks!

So the next day, we drove about two hours to the airport, flew to Atlanta, spent the night, and then flew back to Tampa. Glenn did his normal thing of taking pictures from the airplane window, and these all came out pretty nice.

Anyway, being home isn't so bad. Here's a pic from my birthday!

Cheers, everyone! Hope you are all doing well!