San Francisco to Los Angeles (Route 1)

We left San Francisco early with bagels, cream cheese, strawberry jam and orange juice. We were going to LA to meet Chloe's father in Santa Monica. We hadn't told the kids that we were planning to meet him.
The first part of the journey was on highway 101 and freeway down to route 1 and big sur.
The first 60 miles is incredibly twisty over the side of cliffs and should not, in my opinion, be attempted by the faint hearted
Don't get me wrong it is a very good experience but it it close to the cliffs edge and it is very difficult as a driver to concentrate on the road and not look at the scenery. There are sections that you are down to 10 mph and there are big rv's coming the other way taking up most of the road. The scenery is very pretty but not as nice as the middle to bottom half of the Oregon coast.
The first 10-15 miles we were a little bemused as there was no wildlife at all. Then all of a sudden there was loads.
I think that we are starting to get the hang of it. As we left early and had bagels in the car we didn’t stop until about noon and had covered quite a distance. It makes the day a lot nicer. As we arrived at a place called morro bay at about 4 in the afternoon. There was an Avacado & margerita festival going on. We had a drive around and thought that as it was our last paying night, as we had booked and payed for all of the other stuff, we would splash out and stay somewhere decent. We found a place called the Ascot suites. We had a balcony and a fireplace in the room. We then went to see some of the bands that were playing at the festival. It was just finishing so we ate and then went back to the hotel as they had a free wine tasting. We bought a bottle of white to enjoy on the balcony after the girls went to bed. After we then walked to the marina to watch the sun go down. In the bay is an enormous rock and watching the sun go down, seals playing in the bay and the pelican flying back was amazing. Very romantic.
We Left the next day early as we needed to get to the hotel before Chloe’s dad so that the girls wouldn’t find out about him and it would be a surprise.
We stopped in San Simeon to go to the toilet and ended up in a nice little volunteer manned, marine conservation centre with two lovely ladies giving information about the local wildlife. I can’t remember if it was a few miles before this or after was a beech covered in elephant seals. There was a lady there who was giving information about the seals. They were very lazy slugs. They kept digging in the sand to cover themselves to keep cool.
When we arrived at Malibu it was packed with surfers. It was quite fun to laugh at all the people trying and falling off. I have never tried so they are all better than me.
We arrived before John at the hotel so went for a walk on the beach. We then bumped in to him on the promenade. Ellie was completely over come and burst in to tears.

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