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Published: October 29th 2006
Next it was the bit I was really looking forward to, the drive down the Pacific Highway from San Francisco to San Diego. We went to drop off the Purple Milk Van at Sacramento Airport and ended up keeping it!! It looks like a stunted Hurst, but it only had 16 miles on the clock when we picked it up and we had sort of got used to it. The only change that happened was Jo being put on as an additional driver…… : s
The first stop was going to be somewhere along Monteray Bay, which goes from Santa Cruz to Monteray itself. It was a long drive from Tahoe and being a bit tied, the busy San Fran traffic resulted in us hitting the Monteray Bay area half way down instead of at the top in Santa Cruz. As it happens it turned out to be a good result. We stopped at a town called Seaside. Nothing of great importance has ever happened there it just seemed a good time to find somewhere to stay. The motel we found was alright and we ended up having a couple of really good meals at an old school diner right
next door. We stayed for a couple of days, which gave us enough time to drive down to and have a look around Monteray. We stopped at the well developed Harbour area, it reminded us of Teignmouth with people sitting in their cars on the pier eating fish n chips. The Cannery Row was very pretty it seemed to be a popular place to go out and eat with the street being full of restaurants and late night shops. We found a tourist information guide on things that were going on in the bay and there was a good selection of eating, comedy and live music on. We also found out that it was Seaside’s 50th Birthday of being incorporated and there was a firework display to celebrate. We were sitting in our room with one of the crappy tourist maps trying to work out where the fireworks display was going to be when from right out front, a couple of blocks away the sky just lit up with a loud bang and a sparkle. We drew the curtains and sat back to watch the display….welcome to Seaside J!!
The next day there was a Free Air and Classic
Car Show just up the road at Marina Airfield, so off we went. We had a good look around the car show first and as you can image they love to customise over here and some of the work on old 1930s cars was just amazing. Jo found her ideal car in a 1950s bright red T Bird convertible with beige leather seats and soft top. The Mustang did it for me (We were about a cats whisker away from having a Mustang as an upgrade when we picked up the milk van from San Fran. The kind lady asked which car I’d like to drive and she even phoned around other offices to see if there was one available, unfortunately there were only convertibles and my upgrade would just not stretch that far!!). After the cars we went and had a look at the planes. An Old B25 bomber starting up and doing a fantastic fly by was very nearly the highlight of the show. Although it was towards the end of the day that there were about 6 or 7 old jets up in the air and three of them managed to get into formation to do a
wicked fly by, dipping their wings before peeling off at different trajectories. It was absolutely brilliant to see and the crowd cheered in true cheesy American film style and so did we!!
During the afternoon we had sat and listened to Ted Cosby a Navy Hellcat Ace and Herb Ross an Army P-38 Ace reminisce and answer questions on their experiences during the Second World War. Both had a colorful past and even though they were by now, quite elderly still had a twinkle in their eye as they enthusiastically recounted their battles above the skies of the Pacific and Europe. Herb had become the first P38 pilot to practice drive bombing,not an easy feat as the aircraft were not designed for this purpose. As it happened he only went and sank an Italian frigget at his first attempt! Ted meanwhile was busy escorting ships in the pacific, offering them protection from the now post Pearl Harbour, Japanese kamikazes. It was really enjoyable listening to them and their heroic stories.
The day after it was time to head off down the coast. Our first stop was Carmel, a very nice town. The main street lined with quaint shops,
art galleries and cafes, led down a steep hill to a huge sandy beach. We parked up and had a quick sample of the Californian sand as it was our first opportunity to do so. As the excitement of being at the beach faded so did the appeal of going in for a swim………..it was Baltic. We then headed onto the Big Sur, which is famed for its rugged mountainous coast line. The views were fantastic, as we drove along huge waves smashed into the steep craggy headland with the breaks firing high up into the sky. Every now and then the scenery would change to a sweeping sandy bay. We Stopped off at San Simion as we could hear the sound of seals barking and ended up staying there for a while watching a large group of young elephant seals basking in the sun and practicing their fighting skills (A necessary skill to have if they are to be successful in the courting game!). The day was a wildlife extravaganza as shortly after setting off we stopped again to watch Californian Condors circling the coast, whilst out at sea appeared the huge blow holes of passing whales and the
odd fin…cool.
It was getting late when we came across a lovely looking beach town and for some reason it’s name was strangely familiar. Pismo Beach is the Clam Capital of the World. The city holds the Clam Festival every October unfortunately we missed it by a week. Pismo’s history starts at least 9,000 years ago with the Chumash Indians, who referred to the area as a place to find ‘pismu,’ or ‘tar.’ However this had nothing to do with its familiarity…… For some reason Jo remembered something about the Pismo Beach Disaster???? After googleing “Pismo Beach Distaster” it turns out that in the film ‘Clueless‘, relief supplies were sent to Pismo Beach due to the fictitious Pismo Beach disaster. Nice one Joey!!
That evening still laughing at this we headed down to the beach for a walk. We came across some swings and had a go while watching the sun go down……..We finished our day with a really nice fish supper in a little restaurant overlooking the beach.
Brief highlights from the next day included an early start!! A pleasant drive through Santa Maria and Santa Barbara where Oil rigs suddenly appeared from nowhere out at
sea, and then we came to Oxnard. This is where my Dad went to school in the early Fifties after my Grandad was posted to the nearby airfield. We had only glimpsed at the map of the town the night before on the internet so when we suddenly arrived ahead of schedule we were a little under prepared for searching out some old stomping grounds of my Hedger forefathers!! It took the best part of two hours to find Elm Street, the place where my family had lived and my Dad had gone to school. Unfortunately we had arrived after home time so I couldn’t go in and pester anyone for records on how naughty my dad was whilst he attended!! Nevertheless we walked around and took some pictures of the school and street hoping to capture some forgotten memories and Dad’s old house.
Heading further south we quickly met and passed Malibu Beach and Santa Monica. These places that we felt we knew from TV programmes were just a flash in the eye as the freeway and heavy traffic pulled us along before we’d noticed they were gone, and then we took a wrong turn!! But at
first it ended up quite well as we’d taken a turn into Santa Monica Pier car park. There we saw the familiar view of the golden sands as the sun went down to silhouette the life guard towers. In the words of the local governor “We’ll be back” sorry for the cheese! Imediately after leaving the car park we took another wrong exit and landed ourselves in peak hour traffic heading straight through the middle of LA!! Beverley Hills, Sunset Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, and Wiltshire boulevard were all passed before Jo recognized a street name and we were off out of the congestion and on our way to it find a motel in Long Beach. Or so we thought!! As I’ve mentioned before, but I’ll just say it again. I don’t recommend trying to navigate through a large city with only the help of a 2 by 2 cm map from a discount motel guide book. Scale isn’t one of its strong points. It got to the stage where I actually started to hallucinate and after a shifty u-turn across some industrial waste land!! (Not kidding either!), we drove into our long searched for motel. Again, or so we thought!!
This time it wasn’t our motel and after another look at the sign outside realized it was a completely different name!!! We eventually found the motel and were pleasantly surprised and after a bit of room service were fast asleep. I have to mention, that after negotiating a six lane free way, at night! And another couple of hours circling the Long Beach roads with a, at this stage
highly agitated ME!! I have to commend our Joanna for her calm and at some points damn right scary maneuvers, but alas we did arrive safely and in one piece xxx.
After a well earned rest we started the last leg of our journey down to San Diego. We Passed through Orange county and the beaches of Huntington & Newport, more famously seen in the TV programme "The OC" about a bunch of t-o-s-s-e-r-s!! (we later found out that its actually filmed at Redondo Beach!). The drive took in some beautiful seaside towns with pretty avenues and impressive hill side houses. Rolling hills provided a short break in the development before arriving at our next destination. The PCH drive was over and it all seemed to pass in a heart
beat.
Just to add a little paragraph on this blog. On the way back up the coast from San Diego to LA we wanted to stay at Huntington Beach as it looked really nice on the way down. Unfortunately, there was a big surf competition on over that weekend and the accommodation gone. We settled for a motel a little down the road at nearby Sunset Beach. Here we enjoyed a day sunbathing (check out picture of super Joey!!)followed by a day trip into Huntington to have a look round the town and Central Park followed by a walk along the pier, which served up a fantastic sunset.
*** Thank you to my uncle Patrick for the names of all the planes ; )***
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Ty
non-member comment
ur funny
Am soo jealous , looks like you guys are having the time of your lives! Now remember my postcard!