Birthday weekend: part 1

I know, I know. I am very behind on posting. I have so many pictures from this weekend I've had a hard time picking the best ones.

In honor of making it to another weekend, some of my friends and I spent 3 days on Big Sur National Park and driving down the Pacific Highway. To call it the best, most relaxing weekend ever would be an understandment 

The weekend started off with the 4 hour trip up to the Bay Area, which was filled with lots of country music sing a longs and joking around. Between the 4 of us we represent Michigan, Ohio, Texas and New Jersey so we have a lot of interesting conversations.

Friday evening was uneventful other then is grabbing dinner and a few drinks in Monterey. 

The next morning was when the fun began as we drove into Big Sur early in the morning. It's hard to describe how beautiful the views were

My favorite sight was of the famous Bixby Bridge

Pretty crazy. 

Being the athletic, young folks we are , we decided to go on a 16 mile round trip Andrew Molena trail to the top of a cliff overlooking the coast

We found a pretty cool spot to stop for lunch 

Not too shabby of a spot.

The hike was pretty strenuous, especially since I was still recovering from a cold. There were lots of sights to see, from cool forests on our left to the ocean views on the right. But nothing beat the view from the top where we stopped and lazed around for a very long time 

The hike back down was significantly easier. Unfortunately, we had very poor timing and missed the sunset over the water. But we had seen a lot for one day so we didn't mind

We celebrated our long day with some well deserved clam chowder on the Fisherman's wharf in Monterey.