If you visit (or live in) California you’re pretty much required by law to drive down Highway 1 at least once in your life. The iconic drive, filled with epic views of the coastline can’t be beat. It’ll be hard to focus on anything else.  Your eyes will be be overwhelmed by the view. Much like when you visit Facebook or Instagram and see duck lip and teapot arm on 99.9% of the photos in your feed.

This trip marks the second time in a row that we were upgraded at the car rental place to a lovely SUV. Before you go all Kanye on us and rant, you should know they were both crossovers. Gas guzzlers they were not. Big hug for the environment.

We headed down the beautiful coast and of course, stopped along the way to soak in the sites and get bitch-slapped by the wind. One thing’s for sure though, the wind can’t blow the beauty away.

After researching campgrounds in Big Sur, we decided to go with Pfeiffer State Park. One, because you can reserve in advance and two, because it had good reviews. I’m a sucker for reviews. We picked lovely campsite number 145 which I totally recommend. It’s nestled among the redwoods and only shares one side with another campsite, and it’s super spacious.

Other campsites at Pfeiffer? Not so much. Definitely book one of the sites within the main campground. The other sites seemed crowed and not very lush. They also have what they call Premium Sites (aka river sites). Not to be a wet rag, but most of them didn’t seem to have actual views of the river…and you pay $20 more for them per night.

With two nights to explore the area, we took it fairly easy on the hiking front thanks to my (healing) torn meniscus. Plus, it was quite chilly being all nestled in the woods. We became really good at finding those patches of sun, just like two damn nature cats.

Lucky for us though, we have those warm sleeping bags at night (thanks, Sea to Summit and Marmot).

We drove to the famous (and overpriced) Nepenthe Restaurant and had lunch…with drinks. Duh. And again, the view. Cheers to that. I don’t mind paying $20 for a veggie burger now.

At night, Craig started fires that would make Boy Scouts proud. They definitely came in handy when we were freezing cold in the 40 degree temps.

Remember how I mentioned the wind bitch-slapped us? Well, our last night we got branch-slapped by a surprisingly slender branch, no, twig, from a redwood. Long (pun intended) story short, there was a gust of wind, a snap, and a twig fell from a very tall redwood and bounced off our rental car. Did I mention this twig put a pretty big dent in the roof and side of car? Don’t worry, we disposed of its body in that night’s fire.

That night as we burned that bitch of a branch, a car pulled up and out came four, visibly exhausted 20-somethings of indeterminate European origin. The campgrounds (and those surrounding) were completely booked. They had no place to stay and asked if two could pitch a tent while the other two crashed in their car. Confession: at first, I was a bit hesitant. Kids are loud these days. Remember? I’m a grandma. And it was like 9 pm. Craig channeled his inner Dennis and Dee right away. Of course. Why couldn’t they crash here? We had the room. We would want someone to do the same to us. Oh wait, they did. Come 6 am when we woke up, they were gone. Did I hallucinate it all?

With hopes of them paying it forward, it was time to pack our things in our dented rental and head up to Monterrey for aquariums and hotel beds. And I’m not gonna lie, we don’t have any pics because we were too damn busy drinking due to PTSD from all the damn kids running around the aquarium. Great birth control, Monterrey. Screaming kids aside, the otters were so flippin’ cute. See what I did there?

Ok, back to branch talk. We pulled into the car rental place and the lady didn’t notice anything. “Thank you, bye.” Um, really? I know she’s short. And it’s an SUV (crossover!). But come on. We walked away and then I would like to think two semi-atheists had a touch of Catholic guilt. So we went back. We confessed. The lady kept going on and on about how honest we were and that she didn’t notice the dent. So we filled out a damage report, which they couldn’t even find the form for at first…and that’s that. A collision confession. Do I have to say a million Hail Marys and Our Fathers now until they call us? Well, it’s been three weeks…so I’ll pass. Sorry, God.