We four (Lily, Sherman, Albert, and Judy) took a 3-day self-guided trip (left West Covina on July 30 and returned on Aug. 4), stopping at Sequoia National Park, and a few central California coastal towns: Santa Cruz, Monterey, Selvang, Carmel, and Santa Barbara. The following are some pictures taken in this trip.
Carmel
This little town once had a famous mayor Clint Eastwood.
It is a clean, pretty, colorful, affluent town.
No wonder Eastwood chooses this town to be his home. We only stay here long enough to have lunch due to time constraint. Classy restaurant with tasty food and very reasonable price.
Santa Barbara downtown
We stopped at downtown area and strolled along the main State Street for hour and half. When we first arrived in town, I thought we were in Spain. All the buildings are of Spanish style, white wall, red roof tile, small balcony, beautiful flower yard. State street was busy with tourists. We visited one museum which exhibits the history of Spanish (or Mexican) rule. It even includes an exhibition of Chineses Ching dynasty wax statues. At the foot of the Chinese wax lady is a three-inch long shoes which can only fit a baby's feet. How sad!
Museum entrance
Santa Cruz Beach Wharf
The beach side wharf is a wooden bridge structure built on ocean with two-lane car driveway on top. One side is lined with sea food restaurants and gift shops. The structure is about 10 feet above sea level at the far end. Underneath the structure, sleeping on the supporting bridge frameworks are a lot of sea lions. The howling of the sea lions sounds like some music band playing horns, echoing loudly under the bridge.
Colorful Danish town Solvang
Solvang is a little colorful Danish tourist town, bustling with tourists around the world (speaking various European languages), busily capturing pictures with cameras (including Sherman Wei). In the park there is a bronze bust of the famous children story writer Hans Christian Anderson. The facades of all the shops and restaurants along the streets seem coming right out of the Anderson's story books, unique, colorful, comical and with a fairy tale taste. On the patio balcony in one of the pastry store we leisurely enjoyed sweet Danish pastries and watched the tourists around. Everyone seems relaxing, satisfactory, happy and worry-free.
Seventeen-mile drive on Pebble beach in Monterey
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This is a fenced-in private park open to public with an entry fee of $9 (well worth the money) The seventeen mile drive circles around the beach with guide map listing all the scenic spots along the drive. It is definitely one of the prettiest coastal drive I have ever seen. Inside the drive are beautiful golf courts, huge mansions, flower gardens, shady woods. Uniquely-shaped pine trees grow on the rocks sticking out of the sea. Sea birds hovers above the ocean. Morning mists partially shroud the inland green woods. A beautiful picturesque scenery.
Thousands of sea birds perched on the Bird Rock
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