Driving north from Cambria, one of our first stops was at an elephant seal rookery just north of San Simeon. October is one of the population peaks for elephant seals along this six-mile stretch of beach, and we saw hundreds of them, sharing the space with hundreds of birds.
For the rest of the day, we drove up Highway 1 toward Monterey. This stretch of about 100 miles is a bucket-list road trip. We waited over coffee at Ragged Point for some morning fog to clear, and from then on, each turn of the winding road provided another "Wow!" moment.
We stopped for lunch at Ventana, a resort above Big Sur. The food, and the views, were wonderful.
