Santa Barbara to Monteray via Big Sur

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We make a few bad decisions trying to avoid Los Angeles but get within striking distance of the East Coast. We end up in Taft, a small town that boasts a correctional facility, some oil fields and a Dominos Pizza. We arrive exhausted after a seven hour drive and crash in a motel awoken early the next day buy locals shouting excitedly about the snow. It snows about once every ten years in Taft. There are two roads leaving the town and the one that we want to take is closed. We take a detour past Californian orange groves that are shivering in snow. We join the highway just north of Los Angeles and drive on to Carpinteria. We stay in a motel in an upstairs room decorated in a retro seventies style. A curvy orange sofa hugs one wall and a large wooded rectangle with rounded edges houses a plasma screen on the wall opposite the beds. We drive to Santa Barbra which is fifteen minutes further along the highway and park near the pier. Many people visiting the pier drive along it but we choose to walk with the sea breeze blowing our hair. It's out of season so it's pretty quite. None of the boat trips were running and the bars and restaurants that are open look empty. We look out at the pacific ocean then walk back towards the palm tree lined shaw.

We head into town walking along the main shopping street which is lined with expensive boutique stores, four cinemas, a multitude of Mexican restaurants and other over priced arty shops. We head back to Carpinteria and buy a Chinese take away that must have been loaded with MSG as we both take ages to get off to sleep.

We eat at Starbucks for breakfast and catch up on emails before heading out along the pacific highway on route 101 up what is called Big Sur. It is a beautiful drive winding inland through rolling hills and back out to a coastal road running along a winding cliff side route. We stop off at 'Elephant Seal Bay' and take a look at the alien looking Elephant Seals their that snuggle together on the beach. Seal Pups call out for their mothers who call back in a deep, guttural drain of a response. Bull seals patrol their patch of coast line in the cold waters. They are big and dark, making alien sounds looking mildly ridicules but at the same time are magnificent in their strange natural beauty. It grows dark quickly after we watch the sun dips into the ocean. We drive on into the early night along a cliff road that winds dramatically along the cliff side, bobbing back and forth like a needle sowing the sea to the land. It becomes apparent after a few more hours driving that we are not going to make it Santa Cruz at a reasonable hour so we settle for a cheap motel in Monteray. We grab Lebanese take out and eat in the Motel room. My phone rings in the middle of the night waking me and I spend a fitful morning tossing and turning haunted by concerns over finding employment on own return to the UK and having enough cash to complete our trip. I look like a panda in the early cold light of day. We fill up with petrol and head out on a tangent, inland towards Yosemite National Park.

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