First of all was a lovely sunny walk around the block with Sarah’s best friend Madison her beautiful golden retriever. This was followed by an hour and a half class with Erich Schiffmann whom Helen and Sarah had both trained with in August. It was good for Helen to be back at Exhale, although the $22 class fees are pretty high, luckily we had a free pass between us too. The class was full, although it wasn’t to Dave’s tastes, Helen was definitely in her comfort zone and enjoyed some un-interrupted yogi time, feeling much more confident with Erich’s free-form approach.

Yoga was followed with an appointed with a chiropractor to help sort out Helen’s neck problems and then lunch at Wholefoods on the edge of Venice. The healing part of the day was over, next we were ready for some less-charming enthused Hollywood action. Sarah very kindly played host and drove us around some of the famous landmarks and areas we have so far purposely missed off our list! We drove around Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard and Moholland Avenue taking in some of the mansions and the Hollywood sign.

Moving onto Hollywood itself where a film premier was taking place for Leonardo DiCaprio’s new “J Edgar” film, although we were around 2 hours early for this so could only take in the hype and crowds of fans starting to form. So it’s nothing really to shout about but now we can say we went to Hollywood. We would have liked to enjoy a drink at the roof bar on top of the W Hotel, but it was closed so we had a sneak peak and then enjoyed a beer in the lobby bar.

We ate at a really good Thai restaurant down on Hollywood Boulevard called Jitlada Thai, recommended as THE best Thai in LA!! What a statement! We love our Thai food, and yes it was pretty good especially the green curry and a fish dish. But THE best?? Hmm! It has a good authenticity about the place, family run, not too fancy but the service was slow at the end.

The next day we didn’t really do much but we did get to spend a few hours working with Sarah for her yoga portfolio. Helen shot some images for Sarah’s profile on the Santa Monica beach and grassy sidewalk, involving a mixture of portrait and sequence poses with some lovely natural one’s thrown in too. Dave had already snapped Madison the day before and so we could leave Sarah with a nice series for images for her to treasure (we hope!).

It was a rainy day after a hint of sunshine and later on it cleared up. The perfect day for a film so we watched Martha Marcy May Marlene. A little of a suspense thriller, something we think takes on a Charles Manson inspired story. Then we ate at Fresh ‘n’ Easy over the road from the cinema which has recently opened and offers good salads, sandwiches, soups and so on.

On our last day in LA and after a quick Skype call home to the Roscoe’s we went to another yoga class. This time we were back at Yoga Glo, a studio that offers free yoga to people with an array of top class teachers in LA. It makes its money from the subscribers who follow the yoga classes online, so each class is filmed. We were back with Jo Tastula and she co-taught with meditation teacher Harshada Wagner. Another lovely class which was perhaps more up Dave’s path; more physical basically with guided meditation.

We then made our way to the Getty Centre, which Helen has visited before and remembers the photos she took there. It was a saturday so it was busy, the bonus is free entry but you have a $15 parking fee. It really is a must-see for visitors going to LA. The building sits on a hill overlooking downtown LA and the coast-line. It was a really clear day too so we had great views. The exhibitions were pretty good, the Bauhaus photography exhibit was not really all that good but the one exhibit that stood out for us was Crosscurrents in LA Painting and Sculpture featuring LA artists from the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s including David Hockney’s Splash. This exhibition is part of Pacific Standard Time, art taking place around central LA.

The buildings, architecture and the gardens are perhaps the best thing about the Getty, plus the views. It’s modern, tasteful and very white. Perfect against a blue sky. Lunch there is over-rated and over-priced, we saw a few people taking in a picnic and this seemed the more enjoyable option.

We didn’t have long left so we packed our bags, and after saying goodbye to Madison we went to the Bergamot Station Arts Centre to stop at an exhibition opening. One of Sarah’s colleagues was involved in the opening fettering layered photo montages and photography, this was at the Tag gallery. There is a great hub of art galleries at this location. We then enjoyed perhaps our best sushi yet, one of Sarah’s all time favourites in La. It was excellent and a steal at only $20 each! Again authentic to Japanese culture and their sashimi was fantastic we could have easily been back in Japan! After a filling of sushi Sarah dropped us off at LAX, this was our final goodbye and a little tearful. 3 months in North America, it was strange to be moving on but it also felt good. Thanks to Sarah for being the perfect host and making fantastic home-made granola! Go into business with that Sarah! ha! Oh and her aunty’s pumpkin loaf was amazing, another best seller surely!

So farewell America, for the time being. We’ll do a highlights feature soon and we already have plans of what and where we’d like to visit when we return. New Zealand awaits and we are excited about more new beginnings. We just need to embrace the 13.5 hour flight first.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Quiet times being back in La Canada (LA) especially after an 8 hour journey in the Chinook (Jill and Joe’s RV) but we pretty much caught up on the blog and packing. We did some exercise and cooked some lovely food for us all 2 nights in a row. On the 2nd November Dave and I ended up leaving the lovely home from home we have adopted and ventured down town LA from Pasadena on the Gold Line Metro to Union Station.

This is something new for us, public transport in LA! It’s such a big city to navigate but there is a good metro system if the destinations suit you! It’s $1.50 for one ticket which is valid for 2 hours of travel and took around half an hour to reach Union Station. We were confused when we arrived, but eventually picked up an area map from the information desk at the main entrance and managed to head in the correct direction towards Pueblo de Los Angeles; a very traditionally Mexican area. We hadn’t quite anticipated so many tourists and school groups to be around and realised The festival of the Dead was also taking place. There is a mini Mexican market and lot’s of authentic Mexican restaurants.

Walking down Main Street we stumbled upon Occupy LA at The City Hall. The Mayor has said they can camp there for as long as they want but we’ve since heard that they’re now trying to think of ways to move them on as the area around the City Hall isn’t holding up so well. Aside from this though there is a very strong presence at Occupy LA and we were invited in by a 19 day occupy resident to take a look around. It’s hard not to and it’s an interesting topic to photograph and observe.

So from the 99% to the 1% we ended up making our way to The Disney Concert Hall of which Frank Gehry who’s exhibition we followed in Beijing was the architect. The Concert Hall offers a bizarre versus beauty in its shape, reflections and form, standing out from any building that surround it. We were pleased to be able to explore the building for free and  enjoy both inside and out without any tours or lots of people around. The garden on the 3rd floor is open for people to use in their lunch break and offers a little abyss away from the city blocks of downtown behind. It’s a pretty cool building to explore if those of you out there venture to downtown LA.

On our way to Little Tokyo we wandered further through Occupy LA before enjoying some sushi on 1st Street opposite the Japanese Plaza. $20 between us in a very authentic Japanese style eatery.

We took the Gold Line back to Pasadena, and later that evening we all enjoyed another lovely family dinner! That night we would move closer to the sea as we were to be reunited with Sarah from Helen’s yoga course. We would be exploring a little more over the next few days!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Up early again we set off for Death Valley in anticipation of high temperatures! We stocked up on water and made sure we had lots of food! Its a very extreme place to experience with desert, canyons and not a lot of life other than tourists passing through. We were starting to feel the heat very early on and each time we ventured out of the car we’d soon be back inside! At one stage we had to turn the air con off so as to prevent the engine from over heating – a sign on the road told us to do this! Five of us and lots of bags, not a lot of room so in the heat it only got worse!

We hiked through the Mosaic Canyon which was really interesting and at times we were in the shade too as we walked through the narrow, smooth canyon formations. The lads improvised by using their shorts as hats to keep cool but they didn’t look very cool. Moving on from the mosaics we lunched at Stovepipe Wells (Mark and Russ decided to buy some hats here), paid for our park pass ($20 per car) and ventured onwards to find the pupfish at Salt Creek. We didn’t see any pupfish, but we did find water, although you really wouldn’t want to drink it! There are only two roads through Death Valley and we drove out to perhaps the most famous point through Furnace Creek, which recorded the hottest temperature in North America at around 134F (56 degrees C!!!). It wasn’t quite so hot when we were there peaking at around 102 F, but down at Badwater this was the hottest air temperature and sun all of us had ever experienced, plus to make it worse the salt just reflected the sun straight back at us! Still it was an experience worth having. In two days we’d gone from Yosemite to Death Valley, two completely contrasting landscapes and climates, from seeing snow on the road side to being in the dry hot desert.

Later that night we were entering our 3rd contrasting place in a row. Las Vegas.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We met the boys at the car collection point and picked up our 7 seater Dodge Caravan, oh yeah! It was pretty spacious inside but that soon started to disappear when we loaded our bags into the trunk! We said our goodbyes to Heather and Jamie and off we went on road trip number two. We took the route north through the city, over the Golden Gate Bridge (4th time lucky!) and made our way across the bay area to Berkeley. Having already popped there a few days earlier we thought it would be good to visit the campus on a nice sunny day!

There was an occupy Berkeley demonstration taking place along with a farmers market and an open day at the uni! We walked around the campus and then decided to make tracks via a Trader Joe’s to stock up for the journey. Our route was to take us through to Mariposa which is where we would base ourselves for the night before heading off to Yosemite early the next morning. So we drove along Interstates 580 and 205 and then highways 99 and the 140 to Mariposa.

In total the joinery took over 5 hours and we arrived in Mariposa at around 6pm to check into the very affordable and friendly Mariposa Lodge. We ate locally that night at a good grill restaurant called The Charles Street Diner, it was full which is always a good sign but had ran out of many of their specials. The burger as Dave put it was excellent.

So with an early night we set our alarms for 5.30am and got up the next morning in the dark, it was a quiet start until around 8am. It took us 2 hours to reach Glacier Point where we’d read about some of the best views in the valley, plus we wanted to beat some of the tourist traffic that would be piling in for the day. To put it simply Yosemite National Park is one of the most beautiful around, we managed to explore as much as we could in one day! If it had just been Dave and Helen touring around we would have arranged to camp and spend at least 2-3 days there but as we had an agenda we had to be pretty quick with our day. We drove down into the valley and had a little walk to the Yosemite falls area before making our way through the park and out the other side.

We enjoyed a few band-inspired group photographs throughout the day as well as fantastic views all round! The brakes also had a little bit of a battering on the journey! Must remember to downshift manually in future! After a half hour stop at Mono lake on our way to Bishop we eventually got to our motel at around 7.30pm and set out to grab some Mexican food before once again getting an early night. The next day we had Death Valley to look forward to!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We started the day with a visit to some very inspiring inspiring exhibitions housed at the SFMOMA and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Galleries don’t open until 11am-midday in the city so we edited and wrote in a local cafe before getting the bus to the SOMA district where most of the galleries are based. SFMOMA played host to a fantastic photography exhibition called Face Of Our Time featuring 5 photographers’ work surrounding their interest in making pictures about the current condition of our world. One series that stood out for us was And Misrach’s depiction of the graffiti left behind in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

They were also hosting a private viewing of Richard Serra retrospective, closed doors for that one. But another project that definitely drew us in was The Lunch Break Times by Sharon Lockhart, it gave us quite a few ideas for our hopeful exhibition when we return to the UK. We moved on from the SFMOMA and crossed the street to the Contemporary Jewish Museum where an exhibition about the life of Houdini was taking place. This was a really cool exhibition offering us both an insight into a person we knew very little about other than the magic!

So we’d had our morning of art and then it was time to meet the boys and get ready for our Alcatraz tour. We’d booked onto an evening, sunset tour so as the boat set off and we listened to the tour guide describing the evening’s events we also got to enjoy the sun setting over Golden Gate and the Bay area. The tour was presented as an audio tour with a few rangers and guides around to help and answer any questions. There were extra activities and talks taking place throughout the evening making it different from the day tours and the hospital was open too. We learned about the prisoners, those that were famous, those that were deadly dangerous – Robert Birdman being one! And we had a really good experience of the prison as it was. By night everything seemed a little eerie and the evening ended with a description and presentation of the cell doors being slammed. The evening ended back in North Beach at an old favourite Italian bar.

The next day we had quite an easy one starting at our friend the laundrette before heading into Mission and Castro to explore the streets some more. We found a few vintage shops and independent clothing stores and waited for the boys to make an appearance (Dave’s friends that is!) and not the naked men on the streets we bumped into later on! Yes in Castro it’s legal to walk around naked in public as long as they have a flannel to sit on the bus with! So when we strolled around Castro Helen felt like she was out with her gay friends – only girl…4 men! ha ha! We had a few drinks and later on enjoyed a really good Thai meal back on Mission street.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We started our day with a trip to the Golden Gate Park by taking a bus to the part of the park that houses the Botanical Gardens. The gardens are a bit of paradise away from the busy streets of the city. We enjoyed exploring the succulent plants, flowers and plants from the Andes and the Ancient garden, although at different times of year other parts of the gardens will flourish more.

We communicated with Dave’s friends and planned to meet them in Cows Hollow as we knew there were some good places around there to eat. We took bus number 42 all the way there after a long walk from one end of the park and eventually arrived with them just after 1pm.

A little tip for those using public transport… the boys bought a travel pass for $21 each which permitted them to travel on all public transport methods for 3 days including the cable cars! Another little tip is if you’re not really planning on using the cable cars (which are $6 one way) then a bus pass is also valid on the Muni underground rail, and the street cars. One bus ticked costs $2 and lasts for 4 hours! Good stuff!

Anyway we met the boys at a nice bar called The Brixton and it was really good to see them. This is the first time we’ve had people come and join us for our trip so it’s just been great having the company and seeing such lovely familiar faces! (he he) We enjoyed a good catch up, drinks and food before making our way back up to Lombard street to the zig zag street. We were doing the touristy things again but it didn’t matter. We followed this with a trip to Coit Tower, although we decided to stay at the bottom and chill out whilst the boys enjoyed a little trip up to the top to take in the views. We took the cable car down to Powell Street as we hadn’t been on one yet, and we checked out their hotel before heading back to Mission to enjoy a lovely fish and seafood dinner with our hosts Heather and Jamie at The Anchor on Castro Street. This was our first introduction to the Gay district of San Fran.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Up early to mist and rain we both headed out for an early morning run whilst leaving Barbara in her bunk bed. Today we head back to the centre of San Francisco, but before we did we headed out to Berkley to try and get some sunshine away from the coast. We didn’t find any and it continued to pour down. None the less we headed for a coffee shop for a hot drink and found some great newspaper / what’s on guides. Café Intermezzo was very busy and people were flocking inside to order soups, massive sandwiches and gigantic salads. We couldn’t resist and all ordered our very own sarnies.

We dropped off our beloved Hyundai Sonata at the returns parking depot a few streets away and checked into Parc 55 hotel, which Barbara kindly paid for. Overall we drove 3325 miles in 30 days. We attempted to eat our sandwiches, got half way through and then went for a walk around the city, our first proper look. As it was continuing to rain we headed to China Town and decided to treat ourselves to a foot massage which was a nice relaxing way to avoid the showers. The Cheesecake Factory above Macy’s in Union Square was recommended to us by Barbara and we decided to give it a go. The food was surprisingly good considering the vast menu and slightly Planet Hollywood / Universal Studios feel to the place. The cheesecake desert was very good but we were too stuffed and all shared one, struggling to even eat that!!

We enjoyed our night in the 4 star hotel very much but instead of going for the overpriced breakfast hotel menu we opted for Puccini & Pinetti over the street from Parc 55. It was after 10am when we set off for the Golden Gate bridge opting to take the bus there, we took two buses intact and as we were en-route the sun came out, but when we arrived at the bottom of the bridge it was foggy! There’s always some fogginess going on in San Fran! This was our first time walking on the bridge and we decided to walk from one end to the other with several stops along the way, walking in and out of fog as we did so. It was very atmospheric seeing the giant cables coming out of the fog and we couldn’t see the waves below, only hear them along with the massive amount of traffic driving by. It was pretty surreal and a great experience. It took us around an hour and 45 to walk the bridge but we were much slower crossing it the first time. At the headlands end the path is currently closed but on the other side cyclists could make it all the way across.

We walked back towards Fort Mason getting more views across to Alcatraz and the headlands,  and eventually we ended up taking a bus from the top of Fishermans Wharf. When we got to the hotel Barbara picked up her suitcases and as we were hugging and saying our goodbyes an airport shuttle bus came along so she hopped on and we waved and waved until they turned around the corner. Thanks to Barbara for joining in our adventure!

So now it was back to the two of us, but not for too long as Dave’s friends were flying out that same day! Although we weren’t planning to meet them until Wednesday so we collected the mass of our bags – 2 rucksacks, 2 small rucksacks, camera bag, camping gear in new wall mart $15 bag, a water container and a cool box!!! Jeez!! What has happened here? We packed ourselves into a cab and made our way to our next home, a basement studio underneath the home of fellow travellers Heather and Jamie. Heather found our blog when she was researching for their trip to South-East Asia and sent us a lovely email about how  helpful it was! Yay! So when she knew we were coming to her home town she offered for us to stay in their basement studio at no cost to us! Wow! An amazing help in hand towards our travels and we couldn’t say no!

So our next home was located in the Mission District in between Mission and Castro. We could tell straight away that this neighbourhood had personality and it seemed to suit us! We spent our first night in the area roaming around Mission, found a great Vegetarian Japanese place to eat at on Mission Street called Chaya and followed this on with drinks in a nearby cafe. On our way home we stopped off at Bi-rite, an organic supermarket heading back towards Delores Park on 18th street. We couldn’t stretch the budget to afford their lovely wines, cheeses and deli goods but we did find a few things for us. They also own the famous ice-cream parlour over the road which has queues going on for streets! Crazy but it must be good!!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We had decided that today would be a beach day especially as Barbara had come all the way to sunny California and not been to a beach yet, so this was long overdue! And for us too, we’d been on the go camping and hiking until reaching San Fran so it was good to have a nothing day! We went south to Avila Beach first and lounged on the sand for a good few hours, enjoyed our lunch and walked along the pier. There were a group a ladies on a religious retreat carrying out Baptisims in the sea! It was all pretty full on but they were enjoying themselves immensely. Helen didn’t quite think that they were doing religious baptisms and was surprised when this was confirmed! It was a little awkard when she was asked ‘are you religious’ and to which Helen’s reply was ‘not really no….’ awkward!!

The next beach was Pismo Beach, again coming with a pier (as most Californian beaches do!) although this place was far from the calmness of Avila Bay! It was fairly tacky, very busy and extremely windy! After enjoying a packed ice cream we walked to the sand dunes, Helen left Dave and Barbara to take in the vast sandunes and watch some kite surfing and when reunited the 3 of us went for a drink. That night we ate at a great little restaurant in Cambria called Indigo Moon and we enjoyed some good seafood, meat and vegetarian options! This was our last night in Cambria and we’d really enjoyed our home from home! Plus the hospitality of Jill and Joe – a big thank you to them!

Up fairly early the next day we started making tracks to San Fran. This time instead of the 1 we opted for Highway 101 as it was way quicker! We had one stop for lunch and the sun was with us all the way to San Francisco and when we arrived we drove over the Golden Gate to the Marin Headlands where the HI was welcoming us! Although there was a bit boat race taking place so it was rammed with cars and roads were closed meaning it took us an hour longer! When we checked into the old barrack’s style accommodation we drove to Sausilito on the west side of the bay. Sausilito is a little Italy, with lots of boutiques, a harbour of expensive boats and packed out Italian restaurants and bistros! Very swish! We walked along the path to take in the views looking back toward the San Francisco skyline before enjoying our own Italian feast at Roma.

On the way back to our hostel for the evening we stopped at a vantage point to get some night views of the bridge. This is well worth doing especially if it is a clear evening as the view of the bridge is pretty spectacular.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

After our first night at Jill and Joe’s house in Cambria we had breakfast and headed out for a morning stroll. This took us over an old ranch that has become a preservation area and is a great route through grasslands, forest and coast. We even spotted our first scarecrow in someones front garden taking part in the local competition. San Luis Obispo was our destination for today which took around 60 minutes drive from Cambria.

We stopped along the way at Morro Bay with the plan to kayak around the bay exploring the islands that divide the mainland and the ocean. We hired a two person kayak from kayak horizons for $18 1st hour / $10 per hour afterwards. We spotted some sea otters in the bay as well as seals sunning themselves on the wooden decks. Rain arrived and we called it time on the kayak adventure and met Barbara in a coffee shop.

The Mission in San Luis Obispo is one of the main attractions here and the church was very nice with some interesting painted wall art. The Mission itself wasn’t really that great, more of a local museum which needed some TLC. A walk around the town and a beer/wine got us in the mood for the farmers market which started at 6pm. The street market was more of a food market than anything but they had a decent selection of food on offer, mainly meat based as this is America. Chewing gum alley might not go that great with your Tri-tip sandwich or vegan Thai curry, but its a sight worth seeing.

The following day we decided to stay local and explore Cambria. We first visited the Cambria farmers market which takes place Fridays 2:30pm – 5pm, which had some nice produce on sale. The scarecrow competition was in full swing and had some great entries. A few weeks back we booked our tickets online to visit Hearst Castle (Helen had previously visited but was more than happy to go back) and decided to book the sunset tour which included themed characters wandering the grounds and interacting with each other and the visitors. The castle is pretty amazing and is well worth a visit if you are on the west coast near this area. The tour lasted a couple of hours and ended at the gold leaf roman swimming pool. All three of us loved the tour and the history of the castle.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We left our hostel fairly early so we could get to Monterey as we could see that the weather was better up the coast. En-route we stopped by along the coast next to the surfers museum (which was closed the whole time we were there!). When we arrived in Monterey we took the 17 mile scenic drive around to Pebble beach, it’s $10 per vehicle and there are several stops to make along the way at this very beautiful coastline. The sea is wild against the rocky shores and we read about the ships that came crashing into the bay in search of Monterey. Some areas are inaccessible by foot as they are protected wildlife and conservation areas and it’s not exactly the type of place to go for a swim.

We stopped off at Pebble Beach resort to check out the golf courses and more fantastic views beyond, we looked on at people enjoying their champagne lunch on the veranda! They also house golf tournament trophies at the lodge. Moving on from Pebble beach we came to Carmel Bay, a more sandy beach to enjoy but the sea again was very rough, still it didn’t stop the surfers. After our scenic drive we checked into the motel we were staying at which at $69/night between the 3 of us wasn’t a bad find! We ate in a highly rated mexican restaurant that night, not exactly one to get dressed up for but the food is really good at a low price plus we had left overs for the next day!

We started the next morning with a trip to the Monterey Aquarium. It’s a huge place and so we set aside half a day to explore. This aquarium is the biggest in the world and houses much of what is local to the Californian sea including a juvenile great white shark. Highlights for us included the Deep Blue feeding time aswell as meandering around the sea horse exhibit. It’s a pretty spectacular place with several marine life experts dedicating their time to preserving the marine life in the Monterey Bay.

When we left Monterey we journeyed along the Big Sur with our end destination being Cambria to stay with Helen’s relatives Jill and Joe was again! We had intended originally to stay on the Big Sur and if we’d have been camping this would have been possible as campsites are fairly cheap given the location. However because there were 3 of us it was looking pricey for us to get accommodation at an affordable price so we couldn’t really resist Jill’s offer of getting into Cambria sooner and using their location as a base to explore.

Driving along the Big Sur was again fantastic, there are a lot of stops and a lot of cars wanting to stop, but we chose a few places along the way to explore and take in the views which were breathtaking. It’s tricky to get down to the ocean unless you’re hiking but the views from the road side do it justice enough. We stopped off at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to walk to a waterfall and at the beach area where a waterfall pours onto the beach and into the sea . As we left the Big Sur we found the elephant seals on San Simeon Bay herding together in their hundreds and we eventually arrived in Cambria at 7pm welcomed by Jill and Joe and some good home cooked food and wine! Home comforts!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)