RoadTrip: Pacific Coast Highway

We started up the Pacific Coast Highway on Monday morning with the idea that we would make it to San Fran by Wednesday evening to meet up with Mr. Alex Goodson, a.k.a. Goods.  We stopped for some donuts and milk, chocolate milk for me, on the way out of town. That was pretty much the most exciting thing until lunch when we stopped in Santa Barbara to grab some food.

As we pulled off of the PCH into town there was a guy standing on the street corner twirling a sign.  Nothing different than what you would see in front of a pawn shop trying to buy gold except this was for a place to buy legalized marijuana...a little different than the conservative midwest.  We found a little Greek Cafe and ordered a couple gyros and cokes to go because we wanted to eat on the beach.  As we enjoyed our gyros there were a few guys on the beach that had definitely enjoyed some of the marijuana, as they had a discussion about a kite claiming that they had been flying it for 'half an hour dude' when in reality it was maybe 4 minutes.  After lunch, we strolled down the beach and found the BeachSide Cafe and wished we would have had lunch there but we were satisfied with our Greek cuisine.

The next part of the day was boring yet again with a drive towards San Luis Obispo and the coast.  We were expecting Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 1, coastal views and ocean along this drive but instead it was boring without much to look at.  We reached Morro Bay and decided to stay here because we were tired of driving with the hopes that tomorrow would be the PCH driving we had heard about as one of the "best drives" in America.

We had very little idea about Morro Bay but there was a giant rock that was shrouded in fog that looked very mystical.  Also the campsite was right on the beach even though it was relatively chilly, we were going to be camping on the beach.  The place was pretty much empty so we had our pick of the sites and found one that was by itself with only a small sand hill separating the tent from the Pacific Ocean.

Morro Bay

We wanted to get a better look at this mystical looking giant rock so we started on a walk down the beach towards it.  After awhile we noticed that there were a bunch of sand dollars on the beach and we began picking up the ones that were still intact.  We walked the entire mile and half down the beach to reach Morro Rock and found that there were a good number of people surfing and others playing on the sand.  The water was way too cold, especially with the air not any warmer, to do anything other than dip your toes in so we walked back to camp.

Morro Rock

For dinner in Morro Bay we couldn't decide between Tognazzini's Dockside Restaurant and The Gallery.  We worked out the plan that we would do dinner at Tognazzini's and dessert at The Gallery.  We split the Mexican shrimp cocktail, clam chowder, and halibut for dinner.  The shrimp cocktail was unimpressive with avocado and lacked the spiciness that we wanted.  The clam chowder was delicious and we quickly devoured that part of the meal.  The halibut was quite good but Megan was saving herself for dessert at this point.

Fire on the Beach

At The Gallery, we had some wine and ordered the Molten Chocolate Cake, which Megan was craving.  The Gallery was a more modern place and had a view of Morro Rock.  We also got to watch a few seals play in the bay as we had our chocolatey dessert.  We had to have a fire on the beach because fires on the beach is such a TV/Movie thing to do and it was cold so the warmth was almost necessary.  We slept soundly as we could hear the wind and waves and the cool air surround us.

The next morning it was more slow PCH driving as we inched our way towards the city by the bay, San Fran.  But today was much more scenic and many stops along the way.

Elephant Seal

Our first such stop was at the elephant seals as they were lounging on the beach.  It was overcast and cool and the giant seals were playing around and making barking noises on the beach.  We also stopped at Hearst Castle, which we had no idea what it was until we pulled into the parking lot.  The giant house was ornate, elegant, and way over the top, as were the tour prices and since we had no need to tour the house we were happy walking across the grounds, peaking in the gift shop and heading back out.  I do remember seeing postcards of the Neptune Pool and thinking that I could definitely get used to this type of living.

Elephant Seals Fighting

Pacific Coast Highway Views

We made multiple stops along the PCH as we saw glimpses through the clouds of the blue Pacific Ocean and sky and at one stop we witnessed two condors flying around.  We reached Big Sur by early afternoon and stopped for lunch at Big Sur Deli along the road.  We got our sandwiches, bag of chips, and cokes to go, I also got a sampling of the chicken wings and we took our lunch to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.  We found a picnic spot along a creek and ate lunch as some interesting birds danced around looking for crumbs.  We started a hike along the Ocean View trail but got detoured back to Pfieffer Falls.  The hike was quick and easy with the waterfall being a bit of a disappointment as we were hoping for the ocean vistas. 

Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park

More PCH with 2 California Condors

Big Sur

Now I understand why this drive is amazing!

We continued on with some more PCH before turning off near Santa Cruz to head towards Big Basin Redwoods State Park.  We did the main loop hike which took us near the Mother and Father of the Forest, two of the largest and oldest trees in the World.  These trees were enormous and there was nobody around.  The Mother of the Forest has been burned by fire but is still standing strong, over 300 feet tall.  We were able to sneak over the fence and climb inside the trunk as there was a giant hole going up the tree.  In another tree there was a hole up the trunk that you could see all the way out the top yet the tree was still living.

Standing Inside a Giant Redwood

After our time with the giants, we drove on towards Half Moon Bay and continued up the PCH to San Fran.  This part of the drive was very windy and when we stopped at Half Moon Bay, we were not prepared for the chill in the air.  We finished up our drive by meeting my friend from my old job at Bunge, Alex Goodson.  He amazingly quit Bunge on the same day I did and is starting to work towards medical school in San Francisco.  We met at Little Star Pizza in the Mission in San Fran for some deep dish pizza and beers.  As someone that grew up on Chicago style deep dish, I was pleasantly surprised with the pizza at Little Star.  We went back to Goods' parent's place in the heart of San Francisco and went to bed in the guest bedroom.