Big Sur
Big Sur was originally called "El Pais Grande del Sur" which loosely translated means "Rugged Country with a lot of Big Trees and Fog of the South". Although descriptive, I prefer Big Sur. We arrived here Wednesday, September 19 and stayed two days until it was time to head for Monterey and a real shower in a real motel, but I'll get to that. We made our temporary home at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, where Sure enough, the showers cost a quarter.
This is our campsite which was surrounded by 200 foot tall redwoods which effectively blocked out most daylight. It was Ok though because we got to sleep in until 9:00 and it was still dark. We don't set an alarm when camping (wouldn't that be silly?) so we woke up when we couldn't sleep anymore, turned on the lights, made coffee and took $.25 showers. On the right is one of the spacious and modern guest cottages. Just kidding, that's the Pfeiffer Homestead Cabin built in the early 1890's. Presumably back then the picket fence was white and the showers, if they took any, were free or maybe a penny.
I took a hike to the top of Mount Manuel which took all day and all my energy, all my water, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and would have given me poison oak except I had long pants on.
Here are some scenes from my hike. Top left is the trail sign which says something like "It's way far from here and way UP from here and the upper two miles of the trail are not maintained and you will have to step over big dead trees, crawl under big dead trees, avoid falling off the edge of steep slippery washed-out sections, dodge poison oak, and stuff like that." Top right you can see the trail as it winds along the side of the mountain up into the clouds. Lower left is a view from the top looking down on the marine layer clouds over the ocean, Lower middle is a view from the top looking easterly where it was perfectly clear and dry. Lower right is another view of the trail descending along the mountainside.