17 Mile Drive...

You know I love to travel a lot..The same spirit continued after I moved to Stanford too.. And it always helps when your close friend owns a car! So there we were three guys set out on a weekend trip to the 17 Mile Drive at Monterey California.. It's a long drive along the beach with a numerous scenic spots abutting the Pacific Ocean. It took about an hour and a half for us to get there. The drive on Hwy 17 was spectacular. It's full of twists and turns but with hills on both sides.. You could not enjoy such a scenic beauty if you were to take the US 101 although it might be a bit faster.  The 17 Mile drive is a part of the Pebble Beach Resorts and a privately owned estate and hence you will have to pay a toll of 10$ to take a drive although its free for bicycles. You will also get a map to locate the important places around. The last entry time is 7pm and there is no restriction on the exit time. There were lot of scenic locations on the way, beaches, rocks, beautiful trees etc.. Most of the land is used for Golf and infact many of the top Golfers in the world are members of the Pebble Beach Golf Association. The US Open 2010 Golf is scheduled to happen here. After enjoying a few spots we headed on to a Cafeteria.. We in fact made a mistake by not packing our lunches as the food there was both tasteless and expensive.  We then walked on to a Golf Club which was written as Open to Public. but then the person there told that we should not get in to the grasses as there is a game going on.. Infact most of the places there are written as  "Private Property and No Trespassing". Then we moved on to the mist hyped attraction of the beach, the Lone Cypress. It's a Monterey Cypress tree which has stood the hard climate of the Pacific for the past 250 years. The symbol of the Lone Cypress has been copyrighted by the Pebble Beach Club and cannot be used for commercial purposes.  By 4pm were done with most of the places. We then headed on to the Monarch Grove Sanctuary. It's a place about 6 miles from the 17 Mile Drive where huge butterflies called Monarchs migrate from different parts of America to that place in Winter to get shelter from the freezing cold of the North. They hang around the tall trees in clusters and would be a wonderful sight to watch. Unfortunately it will be an other couple of months before they come here and we returned disappointed.  It was time by then and we started our way back to Santa Clara via Santa Cruz. We just stopped for about 10 minutes in Santa Cruz to have a look at the beach. Santa Cruz by itself could be a single day activity..My friend was very kind enough to give me a ride back to my apartment. It was a wonderful trip. but what I felt about 17 Mile Drive is that it's a very calm, serene and a romantic place. So spending time with your girl friend would be the ideal thing to do.. If not one could go with his family and enjoy in the beach.. But for boys some kind of adventure lacks in the 17 mile drive....:-)