Central California Coast

Driving down Hwy 101 isamazing- from the giant Redwoods, to the beautiful beaches. While driving through the Central Coast here are a few places I’d recommend (and a whole bunch more that I still haven't seen) that you should check out. The drive down the coast really is beautiful. The views.The beaches. The sunsets. It’s best to take you time and smell the roses (or the salt water).
In Santa Cruz, take some time at the Municipal Wharf.

There's a great little resturant, that's been there forever. It's owned and operated by the Stagnaro family. Just inside the front door are some great pictures that tell a bit of the history, if you want to know more the man behind the counter knows all the interesting little facts.

We even got to see some sunbathing sea lions. It's pretty cool that they can get all the way up on those struts.
In Monterey Bay you shouldn’t pass up the aquarium. There are some many different kinds of animals under the sea. This is a great place to get up close to some and even touch a few. I was most enthralled by the jelly fish that seem to glow as they float through the water. Down the coast, just past San Simeon we spent the day at Hearst’s Castle. The Castle is up on a hill, so the view down to the ocean is just beautiful! The guided tour is well worth it as you get to see the grounds and some of the rooms, and you get some back story as well. You even get to see the pools (yep plural, there are two: 1 outside and 1 inside).
Dad takes a pretty cool, artistic sunglasses shots don't you think! Do you think they’d let me take a little dip? There is very intricate details throughout, especially in the gigantic dinning room. They even have there own movie theater, not to mention they’re own runway. Overall a pretty cool place. While this is a coastal tour, we did go inland just a bit to check out the cute dutch style town of Solvang. Lots of cute decorated building. There are lots of little shops, but more importantly lots of little resturants with very yummie food.

Back on the coast we hit up Santa Barbara. And of course we hit up the pier.

You just got to stop by when there’s a pier. They have good food, cool animals, and lots of things to look at. Here we even took the water taxi across the bay. Of course we couldn’t pass up on some ice cream. It’s even a great place to watch the sunset!
Well that’s my quick tour of the central California coastline. There’s so much more to see, we’ll just have to check it our again. What’s your favorite thing to see here?