Spring Break '09

After much debate, plans finally fell together for this year's spring break.  All fingers pointed to an absolutely crazy, drunken, MTV style trip to Cancun!  Just kidding.  But really our plan was to drive back home to the Re✯l Nor C✯l, trek to a beach house in between Santa Cruz and Monterrey, kick it for a few days, then drive back up to Shelter Cove and spend two nights backpacking the Lost Coast before heading back to Ashland.  Here she goes:

Some buddies from school were on a surf trip down south as well.  They stopped by the beach house for a night and took a dip in the water outside the next morning.  I just woke up and walked outside for this shot.
The beach house was conveniently located next to some incredibly fat artichoke fields.  The night before we arrived, the guys who were already there made a mad artichoke run.  We readily reaped the rewards and they were delicious.  Artichokes for days...

This was some mysterious idol in the house.  Weird.

On one of our beach house days we drove down the 1 to Big Sur for a day hike.  Just a little pit stop on the way.
A quick warning before we went on the hike.  I don't know if I agree that poison oak is pretty, but it was amazingly abundant throughout this hike and the whole trip in general.  Our hike was up the Big Sur River Gorge.  When we got there, apparently the park was closed due to reconstruction and fire damage.  We had driven to far to simply give up and turn around.  We promptly walked past at least four "Authorized Personnel Only" signs and stealthily made our way up to the river.  I was forced to ditch the camera and backpack because there were spots where we had to swim to continue up the gorge.  I suppose there are just some things that were not meant to be documented.  This was my first real hike without my camera in a long time and it was actually kind of liberating.  

 
After the gorge we went out to the beach for a little.  California poppies making multiple guest appearances on this trip.
Me messing around.  I used to have this huge thing about shooting into the sun.  I simply wouldn't do it.  After cruisin some web galleries and blogs I decided to bring it back.  Of course this was with flash but I did actually take some into the sun shots this trip with some success.
Looking south.

On the way up we stopped in Santa Cruz for a few hours.  

Close to the beginning of the Lost Coast hike.  Our destination was the point farthest to the left.  It was approximately 9 miles away and took us about 6.5 hours to get there and 3.5 hours to get back.  We double timed it on the way back because we had to make it past an area impassible at high tide... and we had the wind on our backs.
On the way we came upon this young seal.  It was sick or something.

More poppies.

There were many driftwood shelters on the beach.  We slept in one the first night and found this cow in another.

One shelter had games to play.
The second night we slept in a little grove to escape the insane winds and flying sand.  There were trees to climb right in our camp site.
Ending with another wave.  

Great trip though slightly rushed with lots of driving.  Pretty much lots of binge eating, drinking, sleeping, hiking, and beaching.  Livin' the life.

Back to school. Back to shooting for the paper.  Back to the books.

Thanks for looking!

P.S. Ya'll got hooked up with XL pictures this time around.   Grabbed em from the wrong folder and blogger makes it way to hard to upload photos again... enjoy!