Today we had a road trip around the mountains. We drove west through 84 to highway 1, then went south to Santa Cruz, lastly headed up through state route 9 back to Palo Alto.

Ano Nuevo Coast Natural Preserve is a reclusive beach. We only saw a couple people doing kite surfing. Average people won’t come here because it’s windy and only has about 8 parking spots.

Lonely Trees

Lonely Trees

Kite Surfing.

Kite Surfing.

Highway 17 seems to be the only option driving from Santa Cruz back to south bay so it often has slow traffic. We decided to give CA state route 9 a try. Obviously it is longer distance but it took just slightly more time (~10 min) and driving through the forest is much more pleasant than the stressful 17.