Weddingbee Blog

Hello, ’Hive! It’s time for another installment of…

On Thursday morning, we started to make our way down to our next stop, the Tickle Pink Inn in Carmel. This leg of our trip was a wedding gift from the Spaniel-in-laws, who stayed at the same hotel on their own honeymoon thirty-five years ago.

Day 5 route (source)

As beautiful as it was, though, going to Carmel and Monterey was a little bittersweet: our trip was more than half over! But it’s hard to feel bad for too long when the view out of the full-wall of windows in your hotel room looks like this.

(Taken from different corners at different times of day)

We actually were able to see whales from our window the first morning, which was unexpectedly awesome. They were too far away and moved too quickly for me to photograph, though. Most of this leg of our trip seemed to be spent eating, but we also took the 17 Mile Drive after hearing some of the other guests at the hotel raving about it during an afternoon wine and cheese reception. I don’t think it lived up to the hype, and at $9.25 for the privilege of driving through to say so, I’m not really sure this is worth the time or gas. You might say we were THWARTED in our attempts to use our sightseeing time wisely (I swear I’m going somewhere with this). The next day we decided to do some sightseeing that was more up our alley than driving past big houses and golf courses: we took in some gorgeous scenery on a walk at Point Lobos.

A note: if you come to Carmel in March and want to go hiking, bring something warmer than a sweatshirt.

We left pretty quickly before I froze to death. THWARTED! (See? It’s starting to pick up now…!) We left Carmel early on Saturday to give us time to soak in Big Sur down the PCH, and make a stop at Hearst Castle before our last destination before the honeymoon was over. I had high expectations for Big Sur, I’m not going to lie. And if we’d started our trip in Los Angeles and gone gradually north up the coast, it probably would have met them. But I’m not really sure that anything can fairly compete with the redwood and fir forests growing along the highway with the wild Pacific on the other side in Sonoma County.

Day 7 route (source)

Still, it was undeniably gorgeous. I shall be back!

After a few hours in the car, we passed the elephant seals at San Simeon before getting to the visitor center at Hearst Castle.

Sadly, this is the only picture you’ll see from us here, because when we got inside, we discovered that every tour had sold out, for the entire day. THWARTED! (I mean it this time!) Luckily Mr. Spaniel and I had been there before so it wasn’t the end of the world, but if you’re planning on stopping by on a Saturday, it’s probably a good idea to know what time you’ll be there and reserve your tickets in advance! After our little setback, we Spaniels drove the lengthy and arduous six miles to our final honeymoon destination, the Fog Catcher Inn in Cambria.

But don’t let the view from the front of the property fool you: we had a fabulous view of a retaining wall from our room. It can’t be all panoramic ocean views all the time, now can it? Thwarted? Maybe? We only had one night in Cambria, and since it was a pretty familiar spot for us (if you remember, we took our first set of engagement photos there with Mr. Spaniel’s family), we didn’t do much other than sandwich crapping out big-time with dinner and breakfast. We did manage to get a pretty awesome vegetarian dinner at Robin’s Restaurant and a delish breakfast with ollalieberry jam at Linn’s, and to take some really silly pictures for you, but that’s about it.

Aforementioned silly pictures

Our only goal in Cambria was to relax enough to brace ourselves against coming back home by relaxing as much as possible. We pretty much achieved it.

Were you THWARTED in any of your honeymoon plans?

See where the adventure began!

Part I