California Coastin’

Fall was here, but the Indian Summer in California was still in full effect as I prepared to make the last road trip of 2014. I had a wedding to attend in Santa Cruz and it’d been way too long since I made the drive north up the coast. Always up for an adventure, I invited Lindsay Hawley along again. The plan for the way up was to stop in Ventura, Santa Barbara, Pismo, San Luis Obispo, then finally Santa Cruz. The way back down was going to be spontaneously left up in the coastal air.

Marketing and Social Media pro, Lindsay took over ArtLife’s Instagram and Facebook making sure this trip was well documented. We stopped at various surf spots, popped into surf shops, grubbed at local joints, picked up some art from a gallery, watched epic sunsets, and of course snapped a bunch of photos. We made it to the Santa Cruz Wharf just in time to celebrate ArtLife Artist, Craig Waltz, marrying the love of his life. The timing of it all couldn’t have been better.

That may have been true until it was time to head back down to L.A. We both had Big Sur high on our list of places to visit and now here it was directly on our route home. After pulling over at almost every lookout point searching for the best location to hang out for the day, we were amazed by the scenery but not satisfied just yet. Julia Pfeiffer was on our radar now and we weren’t going to settle until we found it. Feeling lost, we found a ranger who said it was “just up the road a couple miles” and did one of those meaningless pointing gestures. Our eyes were peeled but somehow we never saw it.

What we did see was a unblemished dirt path leading all the way down to a beach. It was getting later then we had hoped for so we were immediately sold. I parked the truck, we grabbed our stuff, and headed straight for the ocean. To our amazement the pathway ended at a completely secluded beach with cliffs completely enclosing it away from the rest of the world. This was the place. Sunset was only a few short hours away so we had just enough time to relax, eat, and explore. Being the creative minds we are and seizing the opportunity, we knew it was a more than ideal place for an ArtLife Photoshoot. Nature didn’t disagree.

Later that day the sun would set in the most breathtaking fashion I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen sky art at it’s finest more times then I can count. We had proof that it all was real and not something we had dreamt up. Everything was perfect and the timing was better then before, much better. “Bear Rock Beach”, the name we would give it because of a giant rock at the water’s edge, definitely did not disappoint. Select styles available for purchase in the shop. The scenery, however, is priceless.