Cavorting up the Coast

My rule was: we all had to wear board-shorts as we went up the coast so that, should we see an inviting beach, we could run out and jump in the water without anymore effort than taking off our shirts.  So we began winding the way up the Pacific Coast Highway through areas I'm familiar with (Santa Monica, Malibu, etc) into areas with which I was less familiar (Santa Barbara and almost everything north of there).  We hugged the coastline all the way through.  We stopped at a few missions (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Carmel).  It was awesome for me to see them again and remind the guys who hadn't been out West that even this coast had some older history (they were building the missions around the same time the country was being founded).  It was also nice to know that California's history was, from its first contact with the West, Christian.  We also enjoyed the coastline and parked the car at a mostly empty beach below Big Sur but above Goleta.  Water temperature did not deter us and we sprinted in and played in the waves.  While it was cold, it was also exhilarating and we remained in the water longer than expected.  We then checked out some of the rock formations along this coast. Although there were no tide-pool creatures, Keaton led the way climbing a large rock that jutted almost straight out of the water about 100 feet into the air. On top, we found a lot of bird poop (several inches of dried layers of it) and a couple dead cormorants. There were some live birds that were also annoyed with how close we were coming to their nests.  The view was astounding, but the climb down was a bit rough on our feet. In the end, totally worth it for an unbeatable view of the not so peaceful Pacific Ocean.  

The last place we stopped was the city of Monterey.  A gentle bay hosting a fascinating fishing population, we saw otters, seals, sea lions and the ever ubiquitous sea gull (attempting to steal fish out of the mouth of the sea lion).  In town, we walked around the historic district and saw how important Monterey was to early California history.  We had some delicious seafood and then finally turned inland (sort of) to go up the East Bay.  

As dusk closed in, we decided we would find a tall hill and watch the fireworks shows of the whole Bay Area from the tallest hill we could find.  It was at the top of a gated community, but we found one in Fremont.  :)  It was delightful.  We literally could see hundreds of fireworks shows going off for miles around us.  From Fremont (look it up on GoogleMaps), we could almost see the the city of San Francisco.  We could see shows in the East Bay, shows in Oakland, and show across the Bay as well as nearly every show directly in the San Jose area.  Glorious.  Finally, as night cloaked us in firm darkness, we descended the hill and drove into Berkeley, CA where our friends the Howards live.  I have always loved Berkeley for its color and weirdness.  It was made so much more lovable by the knowledge that a Christian family lives there on purpose to preach the gospel to those colorful people we often dismiss as "damn hippies!"  :)  The Howard's house was amazing and we had two venues at which we could sing.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself because this is only supposed to cover the Coast.