Dana on the balcony of our room, with Point Lobos visible in the distance.

Sunsets are routinely spectacular here.

Did I say "spectacular"? Check out the purple hues of the water!

And this shows an early-morning moonset. This shot is particularly noteworthy for us because it shows a tree branch we have named the "Boar's Head," visible here just above the moon. In windy conditions, this branch has seemed almost articulated, making it look like the boar is chewing.

This seagull lit on our railing Friday morning and stayed there for almost an hour. We named him "Leon" because he seemed to preen and pose for the camera, like the Leon from the Budweiser ads.

I don't have any words that can add to the image.

Ditto.

Each time we have visited this coast, it has worn a different face, never quite the same two times.

The land out at the tip of Point Lobos has an eerie, other-worldly look to it, visible here in the immediate foreground of this photo.

A shot in the other direction more fully illustrates the Mars-scape nature of the terrain. (I Photoshopped out a sign that was on the horizon to accentuate the alien-world effect.)

Dana's camera gave her trouble this day, and while she was fiddling with the camera trying to get it working, I took this shot of her amid the Mars rocks.

Dana on Mars.

Mars up close. Did I mention that I am a big fan of unusual visual textures?

But always, back to the sea.

A view across a mouth of the point, to a cypress grove we later explored.

A large rock just off the point is home to a large population of seals.

A closer shot of the seal rock.

Here I experimented with the camera's sepia-tone effect.

Another shot of the seal rock, with two synchronized waves crashing.

A view south, with the further Big Sur coastline visible in the distance.

Another similar view south.

Once again, same coastline, different view. It's almost difficult to take a bad picture...

Here we're out on the adjacent part of the point, amid the cypress groves mentioned earlier. I made an effort to compose shots framed by cypress branches.

Dana on the point.

Another shot framed in cypress branches.

More...

Still more. (And this is the "editorial commentary" that held up my posting this page?)

Dana spotted this particular window through the cypress, and so gets credit for the shot taken through it.

First stop was at Bixby Bridge, where almost every car commercial on the air today seems to have been filmed. This is the view over the side, with dramatic white striations in the rock.

The view south from Bixby.

Next we stopped at Nepenthe, a charming (if somewhat "stranded in the '60s") restaurant and gift shop with a breathtaking view. My favorite place at Nepenthe is the gift shop's large balcony area, where you can stand amid wind chimes and spinning patio wind sculptures such as these and take in the view.

I also shot a segment of MPEG video while standing in the same place where I took this picture, only to realize that I can't rotate MPEG files as easily as I can JPEG still images...so you'll have to turn your head for the view to make sense. In any event, you get the effect of the wind chimes in the breeze.

The view from Nepenthe.

Another shot from Nepenthe. Does it get any better than this?

Next we headed further south to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, where McWay falls descends some 80 feet into a turquoise cove.

Julia Pfeiffer was the daughter of Michael and Barbara Pfeiffer, some of the first European settlers to homestead this area of the California coast. The Pfeiffers were a family of ranchers and much of this portion of the Big Sur area bears their name.

A close shot of the waterfall.

Another shot that Dana spotted.

Is this even real?

A wide shot from the same spot, this time looking North up the coast.

Focusing in more tightly on a rock formation just offshore.

Here, a closer shot of waves crashing on the beach. Believe me, it was far too cold and windy for any "From Here To Eternity" moments...

A litte further up the same stretch of beach.

Our next stop, back in the other direction, was Pfeiffer Beach...same name, different location. Access to this particular beach is had by a small, mostly 1-lane road that's extremely easy to miss from Highway 1, which winds its circuitous way down some 2 miles of canyon to the beach.

It was extremely windy at this beach, and we didn't stay long. The wind did work up some spectacular waves, though.

Ker-RRASHHH!

I saw these birds standing in the wet sand at the water's edge, and wound up with my favorite picture from the trip.

The most prominent feature of Pfeiffer Beach is the rock with the hole eroded through it. Waves crash through this hole on a regular basis.

Like this!

An effort at getting "artsy" that actually worked out, despite the extreme contrast in the image.

The view north from Pfeiffer Beach.