In the middle of August, Josh and I flew to California for a friend’s wedding and made a little bit of a vacation out of our trip after the wedding festivities.

The wedding was just outside of the San Francisco area, near Mount Diablo. On a free morning before the wedding, Josh and I drove up Mount Diablo and enjoyed the scenic views from the summit. It seemed like a popular mountain to bike on, and I was very impressed with all of those in-shape bicyclists. It looked like a really hard ride.

There were some enormous pine cones on some of the pine trees, you can see the size beside Josh’s hand.

After our friends were married, we spent a few days and drove down to Monterey on Highway 1. The weather was really foggy and rainy for most of the drive, unfortunately, but there was sun at the beginning and end of our trip.

We stopped at some sort of bunker, but we never figured out what it was. The views were very nice from there, though.

The next time we stopped it was at a lighthouse on Pigeon Point. We didn’t see any pigeons, but we did see some seals on the rocks below the lighthouse.

And on we drove to Monterey. The sun was shining and beautiful in the bay, and the sun seekers were out in droves. We walked out onto the pier and had lunch at a seafood restaurant. Then we walked around for a little while before heading back to the car and to our hotel.

At our hotel, the parking lot was jammed full of fancy collectible cars. It was quite the car show, just trying to find a space. There was a car auction going on and the hotel stayed very busy while we were there.

The next day we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is a very nice aquarium. We enjoyed the different shows that they had for feedings. One that was especially fun to watch involved a whole school of sardines. They were very fast, swirling around and around until all the food was gone, then they returned to their hiding hole to avoid predators.

I hope you browse all of my pictures below. Enjoy!