Welcome to our favorite peninsula. Two years ago I watched Walker's eyes light up like a little kid when he drove up and down this coast, so even though we had visited before, we couldn't go out to California and not spend time here.
Sunset #1
Neither of us had ever watched the sun setting perfectly over the ocean (if only the Gulf faced west?), and this trip provided us two splendid opportunities. We parked our car directly facing this. Not bad huh?
Food
Very important to the Fain's. Also important is eating at local jaunts, so much research goes into finding local fare that won't break the bank and helps us gain a better feel for the area. This is the only place I photographed, but trust me, our bellies stayed happy.
Point Lobos
Spectacular State Reserve with miles of trails and breathtaking views.
Animal life abounds, and it was so fun seeing them in their natural environment.
Not a bad place to live, right?
(Not dead, I promise. Just sunning.)
Highway 1
Our original plan was to drive Highway 1 down to Big Sur like we had done two years prior, but unfortunately road work prevented us from getting more than a few miles down. Two other tourists who happened to be pulled off at the same spot snapped this photo for us, and it cracks me up. Walker is normally so photogenic, but he managed to pull off about 8 with this goofy look and awkward chin-tilt (this was the most normal of the bunch). The background was just too pretty not to share.
Sunset #2
We spent about an hour before and after dinner sitting on driftwood at the beach in Carmel just soaking it in.
If we could do this for a couple of hours every day stress would be nonexistent in our lives.
After dinner we came right back to this spot.
We watched surfers (see the tiny black dots in the water?),
exercisers (if you have to be doing side-planks, can you imagine a better place?),
and about 20 of what have to be the world's luckiest dogs. As one local resident was letting her shaking-he-was-so-excited dog off the leash to splash in the surf, she turned to us and said "it just doesn't get much better does it?". No mam, it certainly doesn't.
Just as I was admiring the beautiful affect the light was having on the sand and water, a giant wave came and make me regret (but only a little) my desire to actually have my toes in the sand right on the waters edge. The camera was safe, but I spent the rest of the evening with wet, sandy jeans. Totally worth it though.

Wine Country
We spent half a day in Carmel Valley seeing what their wine country had to offer. More rolling hills, beautiful vineyards, and great conversation.
From there, our drive to Yosemite looked like this. Not bad, right?
Until next time!

Ah, wine country.
We are complete wine novices. We debated answering the "what kind of wine do you guys like?" question with "well, the Charles Shaw blend is our favorite..." (Trader Joe's famous "two-buck chuck" for those unfamiliar) but thought we would at least try to fit in :)
It's no wonder people are so enamored by this place. The wine is wonderful, but it was learning the complexity of the process and hearing the stories of each individual vineyard (especially the smaller ones) that we loved most.
We started at Sterling Vineyards and rode this up to their huge and beautiful winery.
The views from their patio were tough to beat. Napa Valley may not have the majestic-take-your-breath-away effect that some of the other dramatic views on our trip brought, but it was hard to look at all the greenery and rolling hills and not be completely at ease with life.
The nerdy academic side of us loved learning about the process.
Next we rented bikes (yes, bikes - you might recall that our last CA biking experience did not go so smoothly). We are pleased to report that biking in wine country is significantly less stressful and more fun than biking the Golden Gate Bridge. I wish I had a photo of Walker on his bike - the combination of his rolled up jeans, white tennies, helmet, and backpack were a sight I won't soon forget.
Yes, you read that right. The bottle on the left is 27 liters of wine, or approximately 150 glasses. Whoa.
Frog's Leap was our favorite. Off the beaten path. Beautiful tasting room/home. Great wine.
Can you spy Walker in the above photo (he's in the middle)? Hard to beat that experience.
While sparkling wines are not our favorite, the view from Mumm's patio was tough to beat (and sparkling wines photograph so pretty!).
Apparently Walker's learning curve was much greater than mine. After tasting two different Pinot Noir's at Patz & Hall (known for their Pinot), I suddenly heard "well this one certainly has more of a spice and tobacco flavor... [insert fancy sounding description of wine]" effortlessly flow from Walker's mouth. I thought he was trying to make a joke, and was wondering how our server (Mrs. Patz herself) was going to respond, when I heard "Well that is a very accurate description!". Who knew?
We stopped in Sonoma on our way out town, and it is equally as charming.
Per Fran's suggestion (and confirmed by hundreds of Google reviewers), we stopped here for lunch.
If we weren't looking at rolling hills and vineyards as far as the eye could see, we might as well have been back in Alabama.
Meet the Fremont milkshake.
I have no doubt it had 1200+ calories but I just didn't care. SO. GOOD. Worth every calorie. Slurped that glass clean.
As we headed further down the coast we stopped in Muir Woods in an attempt to finally see the trees we were searching for 2 years ago on our fateful bike trip. Turns out, giant Redwoods and giant Sequoias are different trees, and while the Redwoods were enormous and very impressive (tallest trees in the world), the Sequoias (what we were really looking for) are located in Yosemite (conveniently, the last stop on our trip).
Turns out it's hard to capture a tall tree on a camera. We tried all kinds of artsy shots to give you an idea of how tall they were, but they failed miserably, and I'll spare you those takes.
29 photos later, the Fain tour through wine country is complete. Add Napa Valley to the places-100%-worth-returning-to vacation list (it's starting to get long...).

Thanks for hanging in there. Part III to come!