Carmel

We went to a cute little town called Carmel. It's really called Carmel-by-the-sea. Which is suiting because its right on the ocean. The day was perfect, not foggy or cold, just perfect. My parents had their honeymoon there...so we visit when we can. I enjoy not only looking at the views but shopping at the little boutiques there. Mostly we window shop because everything is so expensive.

After the shopping (I left my camera in the car so no pictures of this cute town) we visited a Cathedral called Carmel Mission. It has a lot of history...we almost went inside but realized they NOW charge 5 bucks a pop to get in. We figured we'd take pictures of this beautiful place from the outside. We walking around the premises and found (Eric found) an unlocked door on the side of the building, we poked our heads in and almost went inside...we didn't because that's just wrong and it looked a little creepy. The door led to un unused chapel so we left and headed towards the beach.
We found a cute little place on the rocks and had lunch, tortas that my mom made. We fed our leftovers to the birds and next thing you know we had a ton of them surrounding us. I was worried we'd get pooped on.
After our picnic on the beach we drove down 17 Mile Drive. It's a scenic drive through Pacfic Grove and Pebble beach (costs $$$ to drive on the road) but has many beautiful stops along the drive. One of them is the Lone Cypruss - it's a cypruss tree that grows on this rock - it's been there for many many decades.

To end the night we headed back home and stopped at San Jose to celebrate mine and my sisters birthday (hers is August 22 and mine is the 26th) at a Sushi joint. Spent time with family and hung out at the beach, it was a perfect day!