Pebble Beach and Muir Woods

We left Monterey pretty early in the morning and made our way to 17-mile drive. It was a beautiful drive through forest, amazing homes and scenic golf courses. The drive culminated with a stop at Pebble Beach. We parked and walked around the grounds of one of the most storied golf courses on the West Coast.

Our first stop was the putting green just in front of the Lodge. After taking a quick photo we headed to the Pro Shop which was already filled with 2010 U.S. Open merchandise. Just in front of the Pro Shop is the first tee. We walked around in a few more shops and then made our way the 18th green. The hole is right along the coast line and absolutely stunning. This stop made me reflect on my life at the TOUR. I'm going to miss working in golf.

We left Pebble and headed North to San Francisco. The drive was easy and beautiful up the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped a couple times to take more photos along the coast.

On our way to Muir Woods we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge! I was so excited to see it in person. It was a lot bigger than I pictured it being. We pulled over at a parking lot just after we crossed the bridge to take some photos. It was FREEZING cold and super windy. From the photo spot we could see the bridge and downtown San Francisco.
We made our way to Muir Woods to see the redwood trees. It was a really beautiful forest. We walked through some of the paths and found a 2.6 mile trail.We were sad when we found the sign saying no pets. Good thing we didn't bring Penelope. We missed her so much though! We started walking up hill. The up hill part of this hike seemed to last forever. The trail seemed to taper off a bit at the top of the hill. We looked around and saw a sign that said "lost trail." We took that back down the hill, through the forest.

While we were hiking we saw a little waterfall and took a photo of it for Grant's brother Ed who is a professional waterfall photographer. ;)

At the end of the hike we saw a bunch of people gathered round ahead. We approached the group and saw 2 deer right by the trail! They were SO close to us. We watched them graze with the rest of the group for about 10 minutes and then headed to the car, ready to get some dinner and make our way to Napa Valley.

On the way to Muir Woods we saw a restaurant called the Buckeye Roadhouse right by the Golden Gate Bridge. We decided to grab dinner there on our way to Napa. There was quite a crowd for a Thursday night, so I thought it must be good and it was! It was so good, in fact, that we decided to make dinner reservations for the next night when we'd be returning from Napa to San Francisco.