Friday, February 1, 2013

An afternoon at the beach

A couple of Saturdays ago, the weather here in the Monterey Bay area was gorgeous.  Warm...the temps were in the 70's, sunny, and the waves were huge...up to 20 feet.  We have pretty much had the beaches to ourselves because it's been a little chilly.  Well, when it warms up a bit the people show up!

We were hungry for artichokes again, so we made the short drive up to the Pezzini Farm stand.  Along with our artichokes we also picked up a few snacks and drove just a bit further to Moss Landing to see the sea otters.  We were hoping they would be awake this time, but they really weren't.  They were a bit closer to the shore, so at least we could see them a little better.



I was able to get a great parking spot right in front of the otters.  There were cars coming in constantly and no where for them to park, so as soon as we were done watching the otters I gave up my spot so that another family could have it.  Big mistake.  I had thought I could park somewhere else (not right in front of the otters) for us to walk over the dunes and go to the beach.  There weren't any other spots, they were all taken.  Bummer. 

Oh well, there are plenty of beaches around here.  We headed back towards Monterey and stopped at Marina State Beach, where parking is also free.  The cars were parked all the way from the parking lot out along the street to hwy 1.  I have NEVER seen it that packed.  I really didn't think we'd find a spot, but we had to give it a shot.  The parking lot was completely full, as we were circling around to leave a car backed out and we were the first in line to grab it.  Nice :)!

The first thing that we noticed when we got out of the car was the sound.  The waves were ginormous and when they would crash down it made this strange cracking/booming sound.  I have never heard a sound quite like it.  It definitely got our attention!

We walked down on the sand, but kept a far distance from the edge of the surf.  It was just too dangerous.  There were plenty of people on the beach and some in wetsuits, but I never saw anyone else go near it either.  They might have earlier, but it was crazy rough that evening.


I found a huge driftwood log to sit on and the kids took off running around and playing in the sand.  They found plenty of driftwood sticks laying around to use in their sand creations.  Tyler was even able to make a "T" out of some of them to crown his creation of Tyler Mountain :).




The waves were throwing up a fine mist that made the sunset really vibrant, even a tiny rainbow appeared in the sky.  As soon as the colors started to change, the kids all stopped playing to come over where I was and enjoy the show.





Sometimes there would be two waves crashing from opposite directions, they would be rolling over and racing towards each other and when they would meet in the middle a huge plume of spray would shoot way up high.  It was really cool.  I tried to catch a picture of it, but once again all I had with me was my cell phone.  The photo below is the best I could do...


It was so neat..all along the beach, as the sun started to set, everyone stopped whatever they were doing and just watched in awe...






...I'm not the only one that loves watching the sunset :)

2 comments:

  1. Hello, we are interested in looking at a 5th wheel trailer...however, we were discouraged in that we didn't think a Diesel truck would fit our family of 7.

    How are you managing to transport your family? You have given us up that there may be a vehicle for us :)

    Our kids are 7 and under.

    makroener at gmail is my email addy

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    Replies
    1. Hi! Sorry for the delay in my reply, we have been traveling the past couple of weeks without any internet.

      Anywho, to answer your question...we don't all fit into our truck. I really wish we did, but short of getting a custom 6 door truck there isn't a truck that I know of that will seat us all legally. So...my husband drives our truck pulling the 5th wheel and I drive our suv that seats 8 and follow behind him with all the kiddos. We have little radios in each vehicle that we use to chat while traveling. Not the ideal setup, but it works for us for now :).

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