donna-sue and martin's amazing adventure (aka: ds & m see America)

The next stop in our exploration of California was Half Moon Bay Beach State Park. So back over the mountains,  again, (🙄) to the beach just south of San Francisco. Of course, the temps dropped by about 30°- 40° (for those of you who don't memorize every word I write…it's ok. I know there are a few of you out there with other things to do, like lives, jobs, children, grandchildren, fur babies, etc, but that means it was in the 50°s-60°s), was overcast and even rained on us a couple of days. You know, great beach weather! Haha. Well at least it was ok exploring weather, you just had to "layer". Haha. One day we went on a long bike ride exploring the coast, another day we drove along the coast stopping to explore interesting places including a couple of cool hikes and a stop at Pigeon Point Light.   This was also the time in our trip when we carved out a couple of extra days to go back to Monterey to spend at the aquarium. I could easily go on and on about t

Let me just say, California has a lot of national parks, it has the most of any state.  Nine !  First of all, it is a very big state (even by western state standards) clocking in as the third largest state in the country. And it has incredibly diverse geologic terrain (sandy beaches, rocky beaches, bluffs and cliffs; volcanic mountains, glacially carved granite hewn mountains and deserts; green valleys, golden hillsides and acre upon acre of rich fertile soil).  And unique flora (towering red woods, giant  sequoias and spikey Joshua trees just to make a few).  Of course, there are the well known national parks, like Yosemite, but there  are also some less well known (at least I'd never heard of them …) and one of these less well known parks is Pinnacles. Pinnacles is slightly northeast of Big Sur, on the other side, the eastern side of the coastal mountain range, and it was our next destination. It just so happens that it's also pretty close to Gilroy, the garlic capital of the