Californication

Fog rolling in on Big SurThe first photo set from my recent trip to California is up. It chronicles a little too long trip down Highway 1 thru the Big Sur area. I had done this trip as a kid in a Crown Vic rental car loaded up with three adults and three kids and still had fond memories. Noelle and I didn’t make it past Monterey when we were out two years ago, so it was number one on my priority list for this time.

After seeing a lot of good stuff in the beginning, I went too far down and should have turned around earlier, but I kept thinking I’d eventually see something worthwhile, besides I had nothing else to do after a certain point in time. I think that is called the point-of-no-return. Anyway, I got elephant seals sleeping on the beach, so that was cool I guess. I chose not to check out Hearst Castle.

In total, for the five days, I drove 940 miles. More than half of it was that day. I’ll post more sets over the next week.

Here are a few more random thoughts about the trip:

  • Jet Blue is a good airline for a tall guy like me. The extra leg room was huge on the non-stops, but I don’t like the Red Eye so much. Something a little unnerving about leaving a city at 10.30 pm and arriving home at 6.00 am the next day without being able to sleep very well. That’s probably my only complaint; they had no where near enough pillows for everyone on the flight and I think it was only 2/3 full (I think every middle seat was empty). Can you tell I didn’t get a pillow?
  • As noted in comments on my previous post about the trip, I ate In-N-Out Burger four times in five days. Just a Double-Double with No Onions. No special lingo like “Animal Style” or “4×4” for me. I’d be in trouble if they ever came here…
  • Lots of wildlife encounters this time around: Deer in Muir Woods and the Marin Headlands, an owl in the Marin Headlands, seals and a little salamander/gecko/chameleon down Big Sur.
  • The radio in the Bay Area sucks. Couldn’t find a single alternative music station, so I was stuck with a Mix or Classic Rock, which now aparrently includes 80’s and 90’s, depending on where I was. Probably an equal number of Spanish stations for every English station. That’s not something we see here in the Northeast. There’s a large Asian population out there as well, but apparently no catering to them? Why not?
  • Weather in the 70’s and 80’s the whole time I was there, without a single drop of rain, was pretty sweet, especially since I’ve been back it has been 50’s or lower and that feels a lot more cold to me than it prolly should.
  • The one exception was standing out by the Golden Gate Bridge three nights in a row taking photos at sunset. Froze my t!ts off even though I was better prepared for it clothing-wise this time. Probably where this cold I have right now came from.
  • Yeah, that’s right, I spent three nights in a row up there, which may be my new favorite spot in the World, but only one had a decent sunset, which I pretty much missed on Monday because of traffic. The other nights had fog rolling in and blocking it out, which is still pretty cool to watch.
  • Did I mention how much I like In-N-Out Burger? Just checking…