California Archives - Chris Zachary | Wedding & Portrait Photographer

Finally got around to putting together Part Two of my California trip. I’ve decided to split this one up into 2 posts as well, so stay tuned for Part Three. Incase you missed Part One, here’s the link, https://chriszachary.com/blog/2011/04/16/california-2011-part-one/. The last post ended on Day 4, the night before we made the trek up to San Francisco. This last leg of the trip had a few mishaps, but still turned out to be pretty fun. Read on to get the scoop and view the photos.

Day Five – March 18, 2011 – We woke up early Friday morning and began our drive North to San Francisco. I rode up with Brett and Ashley in the convertible. We passed through L.A. and stopped in Ventura for a great little breakfast. After breakfast, Brett and Ashley took the main highway up to San Fran for the quickest route, while we opted to take the the Pacific Coast Highway for the scenics. After driving through the coastal mountains we made our first stop in Malibu.

After scoping out the break and exploring a little we hopped back into the car and continued our journey north, making countless stops along the way. One stop that was noteworthy was at this point (where apparently a pretty decent little point break wave shows its face from time to time) the road took a sharp right around this rock formation, it looked the the mountain was broken off in order to pave the road through, leaving this huge rock sticking straight out of the ground. Looked really cool. We tooled around there for a bit, took a pee break and started back on the road.

Starting back on the road, we stopped by a little break, not sure of the name if this one. Might be Zuma, not 100% on that, but we thought we’d stop and check it out. It was a little blown out, but we saw a couple guys paddling out. Hung out and watched them for a bit before heading up the road to Rincon.

Rincon is one of the most famous surf spots on the California coast. So we weren’t surprised when we pulled up to a full lineup. This spot is frequented by the likes of Kelly Slater, Bobby Martinez, Connor Coffin, Josh Kerr and many more big names. The only one I recognized out there was Connor Coffin. There were some pretty decent sets reeling off the point, and dudes were ripping. I sat out on the point and shot some photos, while John went for a little surf.

When we left Rincon we continued up the Pacific Coast Highway, heading towards San Fran. Made a quick little stop at a mexican deli for some jalepeno croissants and popped in a Walmart for a AUX cable for some fresh jams. Now here’s where it starts getting a little hairy. We were really stoked on this section on the PCH. The section between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, this is where it passes through the Big Sur, there are redwood forests, waterfalls, and sea lion colonies that we really wanted to see. We knew we were running a little behind on time, so we started scoping out cabin locations in the Big Sur to stay for the night. After finding one, we called to make a reservation. When talking to the folks at the camp ground they informed us, just two days earlier, a landslide had washed out a 15 ft section of the PCE, forcing them to close a 40 mile section. Meaning we had to back track and take another highway up to Santa Cruz. As a result, we missed all the cool scenic stuff we were so excited about seeing. Needless to say, we were a little bummed. And on top of that some storms were moving in. So we made to Santa Cruz as fast as we could and decided to stay there for the night.

Day 6 – March 19, 2011 – After a good nights rest in a sketchy little bed & breakfast in Santa Cruz, we explored the downtown area in search of a Starbucks. We awoke to more storms including some pretty good size hail. We came to the conclusion that Santa Cruz is a pretty sketchy place, especially at night. We came across some pretty interesting characters. Our hotel was located right in front of the popular Santa Cruz surf break called Steamer Lane. There wasn’t much going on as far as waves, pretty much victory at sea, big, choppy and stormy. There appeared to be a surf-kayak competition going on. We scored some Starbucks and reunited with the PCH. There was one spot I had mapped out before hand that I wanted to shoot some landscapes at. Natural Bridges State Park. I didn’t get to set up a good shot like I wanted to, due to the rain but I put together a couple HDRs. I think you’ll see why they call it Natural Bridges. After that we headed on up to Half Moon Bay, to scope out the big-wave spot, Mavericks.

We eventually made it to the big wave spot; Mavericks. A well-known hawaiian surfed drowned here just a week or so earlier and there were memorials in honor of his passing. The ground was wet and muddy, but me and John still hiked up to the cliff to get a over-view of the wave. We hung around here for a bit checking out the scenics. After stopping for some fine italian cusine for lunch, we jumped back on the PCH.

We finally made it to San Francisco! We stopped by a little wave called Pacifica on the way in. I think this is where the Ripcurl Pro Search is going to be this year. Thats it for this post. I will have Part Three up in a day or so, keep a look out!

To be continued….
Up Next: Our visit in San Francisco, stay tuned…

Okay, so im gonna try to fit all the best photos from our trip into one post. I took more photos on this trip then any other trip I’ve ever taken, so it’s gonna be hard to narrow down enough for a blog post. Might have to do it in sections. It might be a little bit till I get to Part 2, I’ve been really busy and haven’t really had time to put it all together. It will probably be a big one for sure. First, I’ll give a little recap of what went down.

Day One, March 14, 2011 – We flew into San Diego on monday, March 14. When we arrived, we drove to Michael, Tami and Alex’s (our cousins) house in San Clemente and had a great lunch at La Siesta Mexican Restaurant. After dinner we cruised up to this Ripcurl outlet where we scored some sweet discount threads. After a trip to the grocery store to get some necessities for the week, we drove down to the beach to see our first Cali Sunset. We then drove to our Aunt Mary Lou’s house in Laguna Niguel, where we stayed for the next few days. Can’t thank her enough for letting us borrow her house (and jacuzzi) while she was out of town.

Day Two, March 15, 2011 – The next few days we spent exploring around the area. My friend Micah (http://fotoboxed.wordpress.com) came out from Rancho Cucamonga and joined us in our quest on tuesday. John went for a little surf at Salt Creek while we shot some photos. The fog was pretty intense, it rolled in just over the water, making it a little tough to shoot some surf photos. After that we cruised North a little ways towards Huntington Beach, stopping in Laguna Beach for some more shopping/shooting. Between Huntington and Laguna, we took a little detour to the infamous Chipotle and some delicious burritos (it lived up to the hype). We spent the next few hours hanging out on the Huntington Beach Pier, watching/shooting the surfers and doing some shopping in the endless amount of surf shops in Huntington. We also stuck around to shoot the sunset before heading back to Laguna Niguel for the night and Micah headed back to his woman in Rancho (thanks for coming out dude!).

Day Three, March 16, 2011 – Wednesday morning started with another surf check at Salt Creek. Waves weren’t looking to good so we booked it down and made the hike to Trestles, where it was breaking a little better. After Trestles we headed to San Clemente for a good ole fashioned backyard barbecue at Tami and Michael’s. Enjoyed some good food, conversation and cervezas (thanks guys!). After dinner, Michael took us up to this sweet little trail up to the peak of this little hill/mountain, overlooking San Clemente and the Pacific Ocean. We hung out here for a bit after sunset, taking photos and whatnot before heading back to Laguna Niguel.

Day Four, March 17, 2011 – Thursday turned out to be a big day of driving. Once again we got up a went down to Salt Creek to check the surf. Probably the best it had been in the past few days. John surfed for a good while, while I shot some photos. After the surf we made the trek up to Los Angeles/Hollywood. We knew we didn’t have a lot of time, because our friends Brett and Ashley were flying into San Diego that afternoon. So we didn’t even get out of the car, we just drove around LA, checked out the famous Hollywood sign, cruised down Rodeo drive, sunset blvd and all that good shit. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make it up to Venice Beach or Santa Monica, maybe next time. At about the time Brett’s plane was landing in San Diego we left LA starting the 2 hour drive south to meet them in SD. We booked it there to meet Brett, Dre, Julian, Carson and Killa Kai at the Razors house (mansion) in Escondido (Brett sporting the convertible Mustang). We assembled our crew and set out to skate this new ledge Aragon had found the previous week. Had to be made for skating, an up-across-down ledge with coping in the middle of the park. We skated that for a while, I did the gnarliest trick i’ll probably never be able to do again (some dude filmed it, hit me up if you got dat clip). The left the ledge spot, grabbed some mexican from Mr. Taco, and headed back to the Razors crib. After some shots and conversation, we departed ways, and headed back to Laguna Niguel.