Click on images below to enlarge:
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| El Sur Ranch (near Point Sur) is huge. We must've driven by it for
several miles. It has tons of cows. (Here's a sample.) It's quite a
contrast to the disturbing conditions on cattle farms one sees on route
five on the way to L.A.
| The non-coast side of the road here consists of rolling brown hills.
It's definitely a different micro-climate than the cooler, foggy, green,
brushy, mountainous terrain elsewhere.
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| Big Sur Village
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| Part of a Big Sur Village. Besides a few restaurants and lodges, there
are some cute, artsy tourist shops. Di Yin noticed that here it appears
the building was designed around the tree in foreground right.
| Another shot of part of Big Sur Village.
| A movie of the backyard bbq one restaurant was having. This video
sweeps around to also show the treetops in the forest that surround Big
Sur Village. It finishes by showing the pool behind one of the lodges.
Listen with sound to enjoy the live jazz band.
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| Lunch at Big Sur Bakery & Restaurant
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| We stopped for lunch at Big Sur Bakery & Restaurant, one
end shown here. It's in another village-like area.
| Big Sur Bakery is up the stairs to the right. This picture looks past
the flowers and cactuses toward the artisty shops in the village.
Also, the village has surprisingly many cactuses.
| We ate inside. We originally sat outside in the patio, which was a
really nice space, but the sun quickly baked me (all the seats in the
shade were occupied) and so we moved inside.
| Di Yin's open-faced ham and gruyere sandwich accompanied with greens and
steak fries. The sandwich was good but too ham-y for me. The fries
were decent/good, marred by being a bit too crispy in my opinion.
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My smoked duck pizza with buffalo mozzarella, one of the day's specials.
It was good. The duck was nicely smoked. It didn't taste particularly
like duck but then didn't taste much like any other meat either.
Fundamentally, the dough was tasty, and that's the key to making a good
pizza.
My finger is in the picture to show how large the pizza was.
| Entrances to two arts/crafts shops in this complex. Also note the large
cactus at the far left.
| A 360-degree panoramic video taken from within the courtyard of the
craft shop that was on the right in the previous picture. This video
begins facing out to the entrance visible in the previous picture.
Watch it attentively to see all the strange statues, sculptures,
plants, painted signs, etc. for sale.
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| More Big Sur
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| Continuing along, we stopped for more great views of the the California
coast. Excellent.
| A road/trail leading up to the large mound along the coast.
| This part of highway 1 in Big Sur curves around steep, stone
mountain-sides.
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| A line of funky mailboxes along highway one. Yes, some people live in
Big Sur. (See the road branching to the left.)
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| Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park
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| Looking south from Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Excellent?
| Looking north in Julia Pfeiffer Burns. Notice at right the trail that
we followed after taking this picture.
| A direct view of the trail, highway 1, and the mountains along Julia
Pfeiffer Burns.
| My first view of the cove the trail skirted. In this high-resolution
shot, notice the stone heart (a bit to the right of the cave facing the
cove).
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| From a bit farther along, we got a nice surprise: McWay Falls.
| Basically the same shot (McWay Falls) in a vertical orientation.
By
the way, there are lots of seagulls--they're those dots on the beach
near the line between wet and dry sand.
| Many people carved names in the cove's dry inland sand. View the
full-sized image. I see fragments of five names, and many faded scrawls
that could be writing but is now too weathered to read.
| A panoramic video of the trail, the cove, and McWay Falls.
Excellent for showing the way the ocean sparkles in the sun.
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| An excellent, wide, high-resolution shot of McWay Falls.
| A more-rectangular shot of McWay Falls taken from the same place. I
think I like the previous picture more.
| Another high-resolution shot taken from slightly farther down the trail.
| A truly excellent, high-resolution shot looking north (i.e., the
opposite direction from the falls) taken at the end of the trail. View
the full-sized image and revel in the varied, vivid colors and changing
landscape. This picture has everything.
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| On another trail, a quick panoramic video of a tree with branches that
decided to re-root themselves! Crazy.
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