Road trip coast transition

Now that my California road trip is over and I'm back in the east coast grind I thought it would be fun to put together all of the shots I took of the scenery as I was driving. Which was 100% safe. I'm hoping it will show the transition from beach to lush to redwood, but I guess we'll see in a few minutes!







Drumroll...

OK, so it didn't turn out to be the smooth slideshow I had hoped for, but I was driving so there. Still, really cool trip with really amazing scenery every mile of the way.

Day 7 - Monterrey and San Fransisco

I spent an hour or so finishing up some sight seeing around Monterrey this morning. I took pictures at places featured in Cannery Row and considered going to the aquarium but it was pricy and I was eager to hit the road for my final stop - San Fransisco!

It started raining almost as soon as I got on the road. I got lost for what felt like FOREVER around Santa José, even with GPS. On this leg of the trip I started noticing homeless people walking around and congregating on street corners - I knew northern California had a big homeless population but I noticed a few things that were interesting: 1) no one tried to clean my windshield at a red light or ask for money and 2) I didn't notice overt signs of mental illness amongst the homeless people I saw (as is frequently the case in New York or Montréal.)

This is also the only part of the drive where there was traffic. Mostly this was because there were a couple of slow pokes and the road was only two lanes (one in either direction). When a space to pass opened up it was generally near a tight turn or something else that made me afraid to pass so I was frustrated for most of this drive. Ba humbug.

The other thing I noticed on the drive was how many cool foods were growing or being sold along the highway - strawberries, artichokes, all kinds of stuff. Really, really cool.

I finally, FINALLY made it to San Fransisco in the afternoon. I ditched my car at the airport where I was picked up by Diana. She took me to her house in the Mission district - but I'll cover that in another post! Peace out, cub scouts!

Day 6 - Monterrey

I arrived in Monterrey mid afternoon and checked into my hotel. It was in a great location near the tourist locations and they didn't charge me even though I had accidentally made my reservation for the night before. Oops!

I ditched my stuff and walked around the old Cannery Row. I never actually finished the book, but I could still appreciate, in a small way, what it might have been like. Now it's basically a tourist trap, but a pretty nice one, as far as these things go. There were some statues and ruins from the old factories and some old labels from sardine cans in the sidewalk as markers. There were also a lot of sea lions to watch from the beach.

 

#nofilter

After doing a quick loop I walked to the pier hoping to get in some whale watching. I've wanted to go whale watching since all the 5th grade classes except for mine went as a field trip, and I heard Monterrey was a good place to go this time of year. When I got to the pier, though, I realized I had missed all the boats for that day. I would have booked a ride for tomorrow morning but the forecast is calling for rain. Wan-wahhh. Instead I snagged a spot on a sail cruise of the harbor. It was my first time ever on a sail boat! It was pretty cool but very chilly. It's not really my gig (I know some people get crazy into it) but it was nice to go for the ride with someone else doing all the work.

After landing back on shore I went on what I hoped would be a quick walk to a pub for some dinner, but me being me I walked the wrong way for about 30 minutes before realizing I wasn't where I wanted to be... so I had to walk another 30 minutes + to get where I wanted to go. Whatever - it was the scenic route. I finally made it to the pub (it was British themed and one of the highest rated placed on yelp) but it was just mediocre. I shared a picnic table with some happy hour-ers and came back to my room right after, totally exhausted.

Not to harsh my own mellow or anything, but I wish I had stayed longer in Big Sur hiking around some of the parks and just made it here to sleep. I still have time to walk around town tomorrow (even though it's small so I'm not sure what I'll do) before making it up to San Fransisco.