ROADTRIPPING THE CALIFORNIA COAST

After a good night’s sleep, we loaded into the car and drove a bit north to Santa Barbara. What struck me immediately along the drive into the city was the uniformity of the architecture. It seemed that every building was painted white with a deep red roof in a Spanish Revival style. Such cohesive, albeit strict, city planning does add something to the character of a city and the experience of a visit. We parked in a small parking garage near State Street and spent some time walking up and down the sidewalks perusing shops and eyeing restaurants. The weather was stereotypically perfect, with the Sun beaming down its warmth, and a breeze off the ocean keeping us cool. It was a quiet morning. Buses released the pressure of their airbrakes several blocks down the street, birds flew overhead, and water trickled from hoses used to hydrate flowers in large concrete pots at the street corners. 

With our stomachs full, we walked off the pier and down onto the sand for a stroll along the beach. The ocean to our right was calm. To our left, skateboarders tried out new tricks in a small skatepark and people ran and rode bikes down a park-side path under palm trees. We walked for a while before turning around back toward State Street, and then to our car. It was early afternoon and we were off to Pismo Beach.

After a couple more hours on the road, we pulled onto a street near Pismo Beach, parked on the curb next to a group of restaurants and souvenir shops that shared walls, and walked two blocks toward the coast to get to the beach. We knew we were in the right place when a group of man-sized letters glowing in cycling color schemes spelled out P I S M O  B E A C H. They sat on a large open park-like area leading to our second pier of the day. We slowly walked out to its end, taking the time to watch surfers forty-or-so feet below try their luck bobbing on the surface waiting for waves. When a wave would finally form, the low Sun would cast its crest into a golden hue as the surfers scrambled to catch it. 

We woke up refreshed and ready for day two of our trip up the coast of Southern California. Again, we loaded into the car and joined the highway for a short trip north. Pulling off the highway, we drove through a few blocks of the small coastal town of Morro Bay and then onto a road that followed the coast taking us past a few water-side restaurants and docks with boats bobbing on the surface of the ocean to our left. Out the windshield Morro Rock stood prominently with a dome-like shape projecting almost six hundred feet into the air.  Its rough brown surfaces curved downward and plunged into the water, with waves forever crashing onto them. 

After a while of watching the waves roll in we got back in the car and drove to the docks and bobbing boats we’d passed on our way in. We got out and walked between the buildings on the water’s edge and then onto the wooden planks that, like the piers we’d explored in Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach, had been worn down by decades of foot traffic. But unlike those piers that had projected straight out over the ocean, these were arranged in a “T” shape. On the inner edge of the left arm of the T stood an antique sailing ship, with a ship from WWII floating on the outer edge. 

Back on the road, we continued north up Route One. It took us away from the coast for a bit, with some hills on our left between us and the ocean. To our right were plots of land used for farming or perhaps wine making. And before too long we rejoined the coast and continued along the ocean until we neared Piedras Blancas. To our left was a small gravel parking area with a sign demarcating a seal viewing area. A path led from the parking lot down along the coast overlooking a brown sandy beach sitting at the base of some cliffs. 

We walked back to the car, and again drove north. Soon, we entered Big Sur. This region of coastal mountains descending into the ocean has been immortalized in countless photographs and movies, and I was excited to finally explore it. We wound back and forth following the highways carved into the mountains’ rocky projections, and eventually made it to the parking lot for our first stop in Big Sur: McWay Falls. A trail led us down some stairs, and through some trees and through a tunnel and on the other side of the tunnel we emerged to the viewing area we were after. 

At this point we were getting a bit hungry, leading us to our next stop: Nepenthe. This restaurant is an icon of the area, perched atop a peak overlooking the entirety of Big Sur to the south. I parked my Chevy Cruze next to a silver Porsche 911 Turbo, and we walked up several flights of concrete stairs ascending through the trees to get a table and grab a bite to eat. The food was good but the overall experience was unforgettable, looking up from our meals at the tree-covered mountains down the coast and endless ocean to the west. For the first time on our trip, clouds filled the sky and blocked the sun preventing us from baking in the sun while eating. After browsing the small gift/book shop at the base of the restaurant we continued down the road. 

We soon pulled off again to visit Pfeiffer Beach. The road to the beach area is a small one lane affair, requiring you to pull off to the side intermittently to let cars driving in the other direction pass. Both sides of the road are bordered by tall dense coniferous trees that block the sun and contribute to a “dark forest” vibe. With no visual variety, this road seemed to go on forever. Luckily the Chevy Cruze, or Chevy Rubicon as I like to call it in these sorts of situations, handled admirably and soon we pulled into a parking area under a large Sargent Cypress tree. The clouds that had rolled into the skies while we ate at Nepenthe were still present, casting everything in a cool humidity. We walked to the end of the parking lot toward the coast, down a small path, and emerged past some trees on the beach. And what we saw made the questionable drive down well worth it. 

We woke up in Monterey, and unlike the previous two days, wouldn’t spend this day driving between destinations. Instead we found our way to a parking garage near Cannery Row and spent the day exploring on foot. We walked a couple of blocks toward the coast to the relatively small section of road that comprises Cannery Row. For those that aren’t familiar, this little waterfront street was once named Ocean View Avenue and was a site of many sardine canneries. Steinbeck published his novel named “Cannery Row” in 1945, and later, the street was officially named Cannery Row. 

After lunch we made our way down the road to the remodeled Hovden Cannery which now housed the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Its relatively humble façade concealed its true size and tempered my expectations, but once we were inside I was overwhelmingly impressed. The remodel and expansion of what used to be a sardine cannery had been done tastefully. Certain sections of the historic location were left intact, allowing patrons to view old portions of the old cannery’s brick walls and piping. The rest, however, was a completely modernized set of spectacular exhibits letting us view marine life from the sandy shore to the deep sea. 

With our aquarium experience complete, we continued our walking tour of Monterey heading east/southeast past the last shops on Cannery Row and continuing onto a coastal walking and biking trail past the Coast Guard Pier to Old Fisherman’s Wharf. Here, we stopped in more shops and walked past restaurants just seeing where the wind would take us. After a stop for gelato we felt we had a full experience and headed back toward our parking spot near Cannery Row. And with this, our trip up the California Coast was complete.