The Real Pebble Beach.

The real Pebble Beach!

Coming up from spending a couple of days down in the Monterey area, I decided to drive up Highway 1 instead of cutting inland towards the 101 northward back home. It’s been quite some time since I’ve driven along the coast as I normally just want to get home as quickly as possible, coming from the Carmel/Monterey area. It take a little longer, but if you want to take your time, you can actually make a 1/2-day of it and is quite relaxing.

Raging water crashing around me; my escape route was under water when I turned around, had to wait for water to flow back out to sea.

First stop, I think it was Pescadero, a little fishing town along the coast not far up the road from Seaside. They have everything seafood here! I don’t recommend, if they even offer it, a burger or any other kind of meat on 4-legs b/c this place is all about crab, fish, clams, shrimp, mussels – whatever can come of the ocean out back, it’s here.

Full bellies, riding up the coast, there are many turn outs to take along the way to pause and take in the scenery. Rolling fog, blue skies and lots of

Mussel Rock aptly named is usually under water.

sunshine was had on this one day. Just before hitting Half Moon Bay itself, there was this sign that read “Pebble Beach” … wait a minute … I just left Pebble Beach down in Monterey. The Pebble Beach that most are familiar with think of pristine golf course along the coast, but this Pebble Beach was different. Parking the car and walking down to the beach itself, I found out why … as the ocean crashes upon the rocky shore, it washes up thousands upon thousands of little pebbles; little round balls a little smaller that Lemonhead candy drops. I’m not sure what kind of stones these are, but there were brown

Just hanging around along the coast

ones, purple, tan, white, orange, blue’ish – very colorful ones indeed. When they crashed up against the shore walls, over time, it created little indentations in the ocean walls. This was the true Pebble Beach.

Driving up past Half Moon Bay to a place little town called Pacifica, just passing through on my way to San Francisco, we saw these parasail’s floating along he coast. Driving around a bit, we finally located their take-off spot. There had to be at least a dozen or so flyers. In speaking with some of them, they were all very passionate about their hobby and

Pacifica fishing pier

were very willing to share their enthusiasm for flying. Watching them float around above the ocean was quite the scene. Even though I wasn’t flying, it was peaceful just watching.

If you have the time, this is a worthwhile drive on some lazy Saturday or Sunday.