The slow drive north

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San Luis Obispo. Funny I’ve always thought it looked more of a spelling mistake than the name of a town, ok city. For us it’s really just a convenient stop on our route north, only spending one night here. Nice place though, seems to have its own microclimate, very pleasant right now, good hill views and proximity to the sea. All the above serve to make property prices red hot, but it does look a real nice place to live. As usual went to check out the local beaches, first to Morro Bay, more of an estuary town, harbour, sandy spit on the other side of the river, but the mist was in, wind blowing, so athough it looked good it was a bit cold. Programmed the new g.f. to get us to Pismo Beach which was as near as I’ve seen to our stereotypical idea of californian beaching. Wide open streches of sand either side of a pier, fishermen on the pier, surfers crowding the water looking for that perfect one. The sun was shining, really quite hot, hot enough for me to end up with reddened arms. Retreated to a bar above the beach where I sampled a good local dark beer and B had a couple of different Martinis. Tried the local indian restaurant for dinner. disappointing. Should have realised when we were asked if we wanted our selection mild, medium or hot. I’ve always understood that different dishes have different levels of heat, you can’t have a Korma that’s hot or a vindaloo that’s mild. Next time we get asked that question without doubt we will walk out.
On to Hwy 1 for the drive to Monterey. The first part of the drive was covered in the ‘May Grey’ that affects this part of the coastline, meant we couldn’t sea much of the ocean but was probably just as well, I needed to concentrate on the road. The mist drifting over our heads made for a surreal picture, the sea was covered by grey, the hills to the other side were shrouded by mist just leaving this clear tunnel over the road surface. Great drive though, if I get the chance to do it again in clear weather I will. Once we got near to Big Sur the skies cleared and the views were fantastic, this bit of Hwy 1 is described as one of the world’s great drives and it’s not hard to see why. Another thing, the further north we’ve got the signs have changed from ‘Support our troops’ to ‘Support our troops - Exit Iraq’. Next stop Monterey.

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Photos

Lots of houses like this
round here

Pismo Beach
from the pier

view from our hotel
in SLO

Point Sur
and the sun shone