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Published: March 22nd 2006
Carmel Sunset
Sunset over the Pacific at Carmel-by-the-Sea. After a long last look, we won't see this ocean again until our trip circle brings us back to Washington in late 2006.
Monterey - Palm Springs, Calif.
Mile 2,472 Prologue: Two months, nearly 2,500 miles, already a million memories. To see a visual representation of the trip thus far, click on the “route map” link at left. I will add these maps to the beginning of blog entries every so often, after an appreciable number of miles have accumulated. I have also created a map of our proposed route for the entire trip, which you can view here. Both maps* will be updated as we go along at the “sabbatical” page of my website (www.shellyrandall.com).
* Note that you can scroll around the maps, but if you zoom in, the micro-level waypoints are not likely to be accurate because I created the maps at the macro continental level you initially see on your screen. So what have we been up to for the last 10 days? Enjoying the southern California sunshine, that’s what! Checking the weather report for Los Angeles (sunny and 72 degrees all winter long, it seemed) was a great encouragement when we were packing for the trip in January, in our much more northerly clime.
We made it down
Highway 1, Big Sur
Talk about a highway with a stuninng setting: that's the roadway you see at left center, and a tiny car to show the scale of these cliffs. the coast to that City of Angels on March 16, and yesterday, after a 4-day stay (during which we donned shorts for the first time!), we turned inland and bade farewell to the Pacific Ocean. We won’t see it again until our trip circle is complete and we are back in Washington state. A sobering thought.
But to backtrack north... The
Monterey Bay Aquarium consumed half a day of our aquatic attention, then we cycled the bike path along the Monterey waterfront and Cannery Row. Racking our bikes on the back of Matilda has proved to be very worthwhile. We often find a parking spot on the edge of a popular downtown, then zoom off to explore on two wheels. If the terrain isn’t too flat, we even feel like we’re getting some exercise.
I did a quick count, and of the 59 nights on our west coast leg we spent 45 of them at private homes, 10 at our family-membership (free) campgrounds, and only four at open-to-the-public campgrounds where we had to shell out $20+ for a place to park and a hook-up. With no host contacts on the sparsely populated Big Sur coast, we spent one of those
Waterfall
A magical lagoon along the Big Sur coast. nights at the latter along the Big Sur River. To get there, we drove a dark, magical, moonlit hour on Highway 1. Had the winding road mostly to ourselves, with the full moon sparkling on the ocean and lighthouses flashing on lonely points. Later we read in our guidebook that we’d traversed the “most scenic” portion of the highway in the dark, but we wouldn’t have traded our experience.
The next day, I was straining my eyes for migrating whales as we drove south, and spied a spout! We pulled over and with our binoculars watched three gray whales making their slow journey north. Then we were assaulted by the nearness of wildlife on a beach near San Simeon that has been adopted in recent years by elephant seals - who don’t seem to care that there is a parking lot nearby, and trails on the low bluff above their birthing grounds. This past winter there were 3,500 elephant seal births on the beach, and the day we visited, several hundred 1- to 2-month old pups were sprawled on the sand. Most of their mothers were gone for the season, but the patriarchal bulls stayed behind to guard the
Preening Peacock
A neck of dazzling iridescent blue. last members of their harem. The volunteer naturalist on duty told us the bulls hadn’t left the beach (or eaten) since last November, so they’d dropped a lot of weight. Another curious thing was how the seals used their flippers to flip wet sand onto their backs to keep them cool (see photo).
Skipped touring
Hearst Castle, which was just down the road, because how could it be more interesting than the elephant seals? Plus we saved $40 on admission right there. Yes, we are on a budget, and well aware that no- or low-cost experiences can be superior to pricey ones.
The next three nights were spent with “recommended stranger” hosts: Roberta and Ted in San Luis Obispo and Pat in Santa Ynez. Ted is a physics professor at
Cal Poly and Roberta is a weaver, and they have a pet chicken named Henny Penny. We learned something about the occupations of all three, and with their wonderful hospitality we felt right at home in their stuccoed bungalow.
Pat also kept chickens, so we had fresh poached eggs for breakfast the morning we stayed at her house, but the most glamorous birds in her aviary were 20-odd peacocks!
Peacock Plumage
A male peacock tries to woo the females with a display of dazzling plumage. It's fun to photograph on a peacock farm! It was mating season, so the males put on a show and Jeff got to hand-feed a tame peahen. That night at Pat’s rural farm was the noisiest night yet, with the peacocks wailing and the roosters crowing. But Pat made up for it with her zest and charm and stories of growing up in the valley 80-some years ago.
While in San Luis Obispo (SLO, an unfortunate acronym to paste on the city’s transit buses), we visited the Port San Luis boatyard and interviewed the owner of hull #1 of the Magellan 35 sloops for a possible
WoodenBoat Magazine short. We also toured the 1772 Spanish mission and a slightly less well-known tourist attraction called “Gum Alley.” (The photo says it all.) And one day we took Matilda to get her oil changed where her current rebuilt engine was “born”: the headquarters of
Go Westy in Los Osos. A cool place to work if you love Volkswagen Westfalias.
We had our first (and only) celebrity sighting north of Hollywood, at a little village called Los Olivos. Jeff met Fess Parker at a “wine country inn and day spa” he owned and often visited, and Jeff was thrilled to
Peahen
Jeff hand-feeds a tame peahen (female) named Lucky. talk with the man who played Davy Crockett in the movies and Daniel Boone on TV.
We drove into Los Angeles on Interstate 405 and were bowled over by a city limit sign that listed the population at 3.6 million. It’s the second-largest city in the U.S., and the greater metropolitan area is home to 9 million people - more than the entire population of our home state!
We were fortunate during our 4-day stay in this metropolis that it showered nearly every day, knocking down the infamous smog and enabling a rare clear view of the valley when we hiked into the Hollywood Hills. Here’s what else we did:
* We met up with two of my high school classmates (we were all on the same Knowledge Bowl team!) for dinner at
Cole’s Buffet in downtown L.A. I hadn’t seen Dan since 1997 and Michael since graduation in 1994, and until I made the connection, Dan didn’t know Michael was living nearby. Turns out we’re all working (or recently worked) as communicating/marketing managers: Dan for a company called
Stoptech in the “motor sports” industry (cars) and Michael for a company called
Pro Armor in the “power sports” industry
Pat
Pat hosted us on her peacock farm in the Santa Ynez Valley. (motorcycles, ATVs, jet skis, etc.). Appropriately, Dan drove us to the restaurant in his zippy performance BMW, and Michael arrived on a Yamaha motorcycle that can go 100 mph in first gear. (See photo of me posed on it and have a laugh.)
* On St. Patrick’s Day (a Friday night), we attempted to find live Irish music in a Santa Monica pub, but were treated instead to two rock bands and way too many people jammed together drinking green beer. Lydia, our hostess with the mostess and a friend of mine from Smith College, had arranged for us to go out with another Smithie and her husband, as well as an up-and-coming cartoonist who goes by Plapp (you might soon catch his pilot of “Brad Wurst,” the talking bratwurst, on Nickelodeon). We really enjoyed meeting them, and had more fun once we returned to Lydia’s apartment and got out the guitar and the Rise Up Singing songbooks. One of us (not me!) brought the evening to a close by hitting all the high notes in “Danny Boy.”
* Hit the Hollywood highlights with Del and Jenna as tour guides. They hiked us up into the hills for
Roberta & Ted
Roberta & Ted were our hosts in San Luis Obispo. Roberta is a weaver -- hence the sheep in the photo! a picnic lunch and led us on the Walk of Fame down Hollywood Boulevard (the names of the stars on concrete stars), an experience only enhanced by the anti-war rally going on in the cordoned-off street. We also did “something most Los Angelinos have never done”: ride the subway! It was great to reune with Del, my college boyfriend, who is just finishing his doctorate in classics at
USC and heading off to his first professorial job in West Virginia this summer. So he and Jenna may appear in this blog again if we stop by to visit them there.
* One last time, we drank our fill of Pacific breezes. On Sunday, Lydia led us on a bicycle ride from her house to the famous beach “boardwalk” (it’s actually a paved trail) and we cycled from the Santa Monica Pier to Venice and back. Weaving through the sea of humanity recreating with roller blades, skate boards, bicycles, hula hoops, volleyballs, surf boards, etc., we experienced the laid-back, beach-bathing side of California. And discovered that Venice actually does have canals. AND saw an amazing sidewalk show in which an incredible athlete leaped over the backs of 10 people standing
Gum Alley
The walls of this alley in San Luis Obispo are completely covered with chewed gum and objects d'art stuck into the stuff. You don't want to see my close-ups! hip to hip. Like so much of this city, you had to see it to believe it. We slaked our appetites that night with homemade paella and the company of Lydia's friend Owen.
* We swung through Irvine on our way out of town yesterday and visited the headquarters of
Sea Magazine and the Duncan Macintosh Company. It was great to see the two editors I’ve worked with: Katie (current assistant editor) and Jane (former assistant editor, now editor of another publication). Had hoped to meet the magazine’s editor, but she was away traveling herself. I do believe in putting a face with a name whenever possible.
* Irvine is also where Canon’s west coast factory service center is located, and we had to make an emergency visit there to drop off my less-than-three-month-old digital SLR camera after it had a small mechanical malfunction. Namely, the data card eject button didn’t pop back up after being depressed. While this was very disappointing, I am grateful for Canon’s good customer service, for warranty protection, and for a promise to mail my camera back to me within a week. Now we just have to figure out where we will be in
Monterey Harbor
From Monterey we looked out at snow-capped mountains and old cannery/fish house buildings. a week! (And we’re traveling with my digital point-and-shoot as a back-up, so we won’t miss any shots in the meantime.)
Now we have landed at the Palm Springs home of some distant relatives. Grady is my third cousin once removed or something like that, with a big family of children to keep us all entertained. More about our inland adventures next time!
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Juliet
non-member comment
to the traveling duo
Shelly and Jeff, Its great to "follow" you around on this blog. I'm living vicariously through you as I try to wrap up my dissertation draft (eeek!!). After I turn in my draft I'm actually going on a mini-walz myself up to Oregon to stay at a yurt on the beach with my sweetie. By the way, could you email me or post that pic you took of the two of us while you were here? Lots of love and safe travels!!