California’s Highway 1 to Monterey With Fantastic Ocean Views

We woke up on  Christmas Eve morning to patches of blue sky in San Francisco. Overnight a storm had blown through, and some areas of the city lost power. We, however, were fine in our part of the city. We continued to see warnings of bad weather on the weather app, but the blue sky overhead seemed to render those concerns questionable.

After breakfast we packed up, and with Andrea at the wheel we headed south to Monterey. There are two ways to drive south. Highway101 is the fastest way and offers a pretty easy route. However, being in no hurry, we opted for highway 1 which hugs the coastline most of the way down providing a more scenic experience.

When we reached the coast, one of the things we observed was that the waves were pretty high as well as the tide itself. Despite the sunny skies, the sea still seemed a bit agitated by the recent weather.

We stopped at Montara State Beach. There wasn’t any easy access down to the beach that we saw, but we enjoyed the scenery looking up and down the beach from the cliff we stood on. We followed a path along the cliff, but a significant break in the cliff kept us from going too far. We did enjoy watching a dog below enjoying life on the beach with its owner.

Continuing south on Highway 1, we drove through Half Moon Bay. Andrea and I came here a few years ago to walk along the cliffs. Since we had been here recently, we didn’t stop at the beach.

Our next stop was Pescadero State Beach. This was the most interesting of our stops this day. There were a number of large rocks or sea stacks off the coast which the high waves were crashing into. This would create high sprays of water. There were a number of places from which we could take photos. It was fun trying to capture those water sprays with my camera. I could have stayed there for quite a while, but we eventually needed to move on.

Shortly after leaving Pescadero State Beach, we saw a lighthouse near the water. We left Highway 1 and drove over in that direction to check it out. We found ourselves at Pigeon Point State Historic Park. As luck would have it, the lighthouse was being renovated so we couldn’t get too close to it. In the property complex is a hostel which I found an interesting use of the property. The hostel boasts a cliffside hot tub. Since there is no town nearby, I feel guests who stay here will find themselves quite isolated.

We discovered a viewpoint behind the lighthouse, and from there we observed a lot of pelicans flying by. They all flew from the north to the south. My focus became trying to grab photos of the pelicans. The only other time I had seen pelicans was when we took a boat out to the Channel Islands National Park.

Exploring the point more we discovered a sea stack around the corner where the pelicans seemed to rest. This probably explains why they always came from that direction. Photos from here looked directly into the sun which made it challenging to get good photos.

This was our final stop seeing the beauty of the coast. The weather had become more cloudy, and Highway 1 turned inland so we just headed to Monterey. We arrived mid-afternoon just in time to check into our hotel. This was a no contact check-in. The hotel texted us our room number and a code used to enter our room. This type of set-up seems more and more common. For other hotels using this system there was no office on site, but this hotel did have an office we could visit for problems.

After settling into our hotel, we decided to walk into town. For some reason I didn’t take my camera. We saw blue sky when we left, but when we got down to the waterfront, it started to rain. At first it was just a sprinkle, but then it got stronger. Eventually we escaped to a Starbucks to stay dry. From there we searched for a place for dinner. We ended up at a nearby hamburger place which had good food. By then the rain had stopped so we walked back to our hotel.

Because it was Christmas Eve, we wanted to attend a Christmas Eve service. We settled on a service at a Presbyterian church that was just a few blocks away. It was a very traditional candle lighting service. The service featured a number of musical performances from the main choir to a bell choir. The music was all well done and added a lot to the service. We all enjoyed the service.

The weather forecast predicted a storm would blow through during the night again. Our biggest concern was whether we would lose our power. We went to bed hoping for the best.

Credit: Photo of Andrea and me taking photos taken by Silvette Lee