Road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway

Natalie had a few days off over the 4th of July so we took off Friday for California! We took our bikes with us to get a little exercise and see the sights a little slower. Of course, the first thing that happened is we got a flat tire. 2 of them. This is the second, on the side of the road on our way back to the hotel. We were in scenic Port Hueneme ("you-n-me" cute, huh?), there were tons of green fields and cute little fruit stands all along this road.

There were tons of these types of trees that all looked like giant bonzai trees getting blown over. It made the whole town look slightly tipsy.
In addition to the drunken trees, there was the most random sign on the road out of town.
Pirate Staffing? Seriously? What do you need them for? Do you go to those guys if you have a pirate ship you need staffed, or is it for placing buccaneers in corporate offices?

We drove through some really pretty wine country... on accident. We made a wrong turn on our way to Santa Barbara for the 4th, and wound up cruising through some really pretty farms. We played "Name that Agricultural Product" as we drove. We got pretty good at recognizing strawberries and grapes, and that's about it. If it wasn't for the sign, we never would have guessed those fern-looking things were artichokes (of course, we didn't take a picture, but that's ok).

We stopped in Santa Barbara on the 4th, there were SO many people!!! This is us taking a break from the madness.US-1: Pacific Coast Highway. It was so gorgeous the whole way up. As you can see, it's a windy little 2 lane highway that hugs the coast as much as possible. A couple of places were pretty scary but the ocean was breathtaking.

Natalie thought these trees looked funny, so we have about 15 pictures of these and others just like them.

Stopped along a little turnout somewhere up the coast, I think this is near Carmel.

Why is Dallas making this funny face, you might ask?

That's why.

We made it all the way to San Francisco and rode our bikes over the Golden Gate Bridge.

The thing about taking a vacation with just the two of us, it's hard to get good pictures of us together. Maybe if I was a little more adept at Photoshop I could do more than just put my picture close to Natalie's picture, but that's ok.

More to follow...