On The Winding Coastal Highway
Santa Barbara to Monterey, California
Friday 17 July 2009 - Saturday 18 July 2009
25 °C
Ah, trying to use this seemingly 10-year-old computer -- the mouse has a ball in it! Anyway, it crashes when I try to rotate photos, so bear with me. We just uploaded about 60 photos to Flickr, so check 'em out! We have been cruising up the national highway 1, up the coast from Santa Barbara (last time Ness blogged) and spent last night in San Luis Obispo. Lodging has been a bit tough because it's mid-summer and most places are booked out (hostels that is). And the motels are a fair bit more expensive and don't have kitchen or washing facilities like hostels do. And there's no socialising! We passed through a small town called Santa Ynez which is in the Californian wine country, it's beautiful. We went to a small farmers market at a vineyard too, and a couple of the photos (of the flowers and vineyard) are from there.
Today we choofed early from San Luis Obispo (after a pathetic 'continental' breakfast of soggy plastic-packaged danishes and crap coffee with coffee 'creamer' powder (no milk) -- this is what you get at cheap motels), along highway 1. It hugged the rugged and beautiful coastline all the way to Monterey, where we are now. We stopped by Hearst Castle, a mansion built by William Hearst 80 years ago (Wikipedia it) which is stunning. Did a tour of that and then hit the road again. The coast here is breathtaking, with high cliffs and sandy beaches with elephant seals (see photos of, on Flickr). The road is etched into the cliff and has one-after-the-other hairpins, with 'vista's (lookouts) sprinkled here and there. The road was very busy with traffic, being Saturday, so it was slow going and a difficult drive. The air here is warm during the day but cold at night, and the sun is quite strong during the day. It's a real nice place to be, in stark contrast to the winter back in Melbourne!
Tomorrow we are heading to Santa Cruz, spending the night there then heading to San Francisco on Monday. Our plan has changed a little -- previously we were going to head to Vegas on around the 26th to be there for my 30th birthday. But we have been so impressed by the coast and towns along here that we decided to spend more time here (on the way to San Fran), and this has left us a bit time-strapped. We have the hire car until the 30th so we will spend some time at Yosemite National Park after San Fran, then scoot back to LA to return the car. Then we'll take a bus out to Vegas for 5 days, return to LA then fly out to South America on the 5th August.
Observations from the USA are that firstly, this place is really nice, there is some amazing varied scenery in California and I am really enjoying being here. Secondly, the burgers are generally really nice, though fattening -- the burgers at Maccas are way better than in Australia! Americans are nice, not all fat like some people say (though this is California).
See photos here on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkz/
Till next time,
Corey 
Posted by funkzzz Saturday 18 July 2009 21:38 Archived in USA
Love Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez. Such gorgeous towns and the wine tasting in the mountains is quite excellent. The beaches in Santa Barbara though are by far the best, I love them sooo much! I was just there actually and had a fabulous time. I stayed at the Sandman Inn (www.thesandmaninn.com). So budget friendly and very quaint and cozy. Perfect place to come home to after a long day out and about.
Monday 19 September 2011 by Adele454