The Search for Beach Glass at Monterey Bay

Last Sunday (April 11) Tom and I packed our lunch - lovely leftover bbq'd chicken pizza - jumped in the car and headed down the coast for another adventure in beach glass collecting! Read a great blog the week before, giving me the idea for our latest Sunday drive. I highly recommend checking out this blog out if you are headed in the Monterey Bay, Carmel, Pacific Grove direction...wonderful advice about where to go and what do to.

BlogMonterey.com: http://www.blogmonterey.com/

I met the author of the Monterey Blog on Twitter (for Twitter fans - http://twitter.com/SeeMonterey) and she gave me some great advice about where to find sea glass in Monterey, especially helpful since we had no clue where to start.  Followed her directions and ended up at just where we needed to be. At the park across the street from McDonald's on Del Monte, south of Fisherman's Wharf!


Beautiful day, and the beach was littered with tons of sea glass, just waiting for us to scoop it up! It's a little hard to tell in the photo, but I was trying to show you how much glass was there, and how easy it was to find. Even if we had not found any glass, it was simply a great place to walk and enjoy the calm, mesmerizing sound of the gentle deep turquoise surf, sea birds, all while meeting other beachcombers out for a Sunday walk on the shore.

Here's just a few of my favorite pieces to show off!

Collection of all kinds of green pieces. I like the really pitted worn ones the best, and the light green pieces.

Amber and brown tones - love it when you can still feel and see the ridges from old bottles...

Wish I made jewelry!  Love love love my aqua and turquoise pieces of sea-tumbled glass

This cool rounded, cupped piece was Tom's big find for the day! Kind of an avocado-lime green, with little bubbles in the glass, about an inch in diameter, can't imagine what it might have come from..

This unique piece of sea glass was my favorite find! Looks like chicken wire

 embedded into an aqua chunk of glass; 

almost 2 inches long  x 1 inch at the widest section. 

I find it so interesting that every beach that I go to, I find different shapes, colors, textures....  

Would love to hear from you, what are some of your favorite haunts for sea glass? 

More Adventures on Hwy 1 - Central Coast of California part 1

Well... let me start off by saying, we got sort of lost. Our goal was Stinson Beach, and we "sort of"  knew the way from Mill Valley. If you have ever been this way over to Stinson Beach, you will have to agree that it is not well marked at all.  Driving up windy, twisting, skinny residential streets, you just hope that you're going the right way.   We even used the GPS  in Tom's car, and boy did we go the wrong way! Sometimes getting lost can be the best thing though...

All the way up Mt. Tam, we kept saying to each other "wow, I don't remember this" and "do you remember this view", "maybe it was foggy the last time we came this way?"  We kept passing signs on steel gates "park road closes at sunset" - sure didn't seem like we had gone this way before??

Look what our view was from the top! By the way, it looks a lot warmer than it was.  The wind was blowing incredibly cold and just about blew us over...

So glad that we did go off the beaten track, we would have missed this opportunity to see the city from one side, and the expanse of the Pacific Ocean on the other side... all the way down past Pacifica.

In the span of 5 minutes, I am once again reminded of how small we are and how incredible the world really is.

Sunday Drives..

After all of the moving, packing, unpacking, cleaning, and sorting inventory, I desperately needed a break last Sunday. (was approaching a melt-down stage!) Thank goodness Tom doesn't mind heading to the ocean, and walking with me on the beach. He will even hold my hand...

No beach glass to be found, but the sounds and sights of the thundering surf did the trick! There is just something soothing and so incredibly beautiful about driving on Hwy 1, in California. We headed south after turning at Half Moon Bay, simply driving along the winding, curving road, finding it difficult to not want to stop at every state park and vista along the way! So much to see and admire; long stretches of golden sand, the bright pinks and neon yellows of the spring blooming coastal flowers with the extraordinary dark swirling aqua and turquoise shades of the Pacific Ocean.

Tom definitely had to hold my hand, while I took DEEP breaths walking out along the cliffs, with a very strong wind blowing. There was a big sign - "Caution" Unstable Cliffs... guess we missed that! Hope you all enjoy the pictures - so many bright colors!

Pigeon Point has become one of my favorite stops along Hwy 1, there is always something different to see and enjoy. Crumbling, falling down lighthouse, weather beaten buildings and a picket fence...

A rope fence....love these colors!

Wild Calla Lillies everywhere!

Look at these wild strawberry plants covering the dunes at Scott's Beach... brings back so many memories of strawberry picking in the dunes at Ocean Shores...

Ice Plants

Love our Sunday drives, and I think Tom does too - because we stop at New Leaf grocery store in Half Moon Bay, and we buy oysters. (not for me!) This time we also brought home a wonderful swordfish steak.

Where are your favorite Sunday afternoon drives?

Rodeo Lagoon at Marin Headlands

Today was not a great day for photography.  Too windy, too gray, the sky was too flat, but such an awesome day to actually experience being out at the Marin Headlands!  Rodeo Beach was closed due to high surf and very dangerous coastal conditions, but I could still walk around Rodeo Lagoon.

The Lagoon was filled to the brim with seawater from the Pacific Ocean, and these shore birds did not seem to mind one bit!  Actually, I was rather shocked that they let me get so close.  Usually when I try to catch a grey heron, they are off and running as soon as I get the camera out.

Hope you enjoy these sea birds from the Marin Headlands in Sausalito!

Stinson Beach Sunsets

Had an absolute dream day on Saturday, driving to the Pt. Reyes National Seashore on Hwy 1, in Northern California.   Hard to imagine that another perfect day could be topped off any more beautifully.  

These photos were taken overlooking Stinson Beach, and the Pacific Ocean  from the road that rises up to Mt. Tam, and then back over to San Francisco.  Just had to pull over and drink in this incredible view!

Watch the progression of colors as the sun sinks further into the Pacific..

The sky was absolutely on fire with brilliant pink and orange flaming clouds! Love this view with the curve of Stinson Beach. During the day, when driving down this hill, the view that stretches out with white sand and all the blues of the color wheel is one of my favorites! Some days you get lucky and the surf is whipped with the white caps of the Pacific Ocean.

Tom thought he was so sneaky! Taking a picture of me, while I tried to capture one more image on my Iphone....