I'm sitting here with the last statements from my two credit cards, hoping their charges will help me remember where we went and what we did on this two-week road trip. For instance, I know we picked up breakfast at the House of Bagels in San Luis Obispo, and that they had good lattes, and that they had the strictest COVID 19 protocols we had seen so far, which suited us fine.
Each day on the road I sent myself emails about stuff we passed that caught my interest, but a lot of it was just one or two words, and now I find myself thinking, Orrick burls? Bigfoot lawn art . . . ?
My report from Google Maps is also helpful. Damned if they didn't chronicle the entire trip, including length of time on the road and at each stop. Good thing I'm not a spy. My bosses would question every corndog. I'm sure they would refuse to reimburse my expenses on at least half of it.
Sunday morning, November 1st, gave us our first glimpse of the ocean, which was, after all, the main point of driving up the West Coast Highway. I found out what a marine layer is, something you can be sure does not exist in my part of the Sonoran Desert. I've see the ocean before, and it always seems gigantic and spooky to me. Its erosional force is unparalleled -- and it's quite noisy. Our first stop was in a place called Morro Bay, to see a giant, offshore rock that ships have apparently crashed into for years. I christened it Crashy Rock.
We had to photograph some of the little joints along the docks, because taking pictures of wacky stuff is what we live to do. There were quite a few sharks, and some faux tikis.
It took us a while to figure out that the big shark with the red thing in its mouth was gnawing on a COVID 19 virus.
But my favorite stop for the day was a beautiful town called Cambria. I don't often long to move to places I visit, but Cambria would suit me just fine. It's where a I found a Mexican restaurant called Medusa's.
Since it was the Halloween season, we saw quite a few fall displays, including scarecrows, and I discovered that bales of straw are perfect for making Minions.
Farther up the coast, we found a group of seals that looked dead, but really were just napping like pros. Every once in a while, one of them would scratch his butt or his nose, offering proof of life.
In Big Sur we stopped at the Coast Gallery and Cafe because they carry some of my brother's drum boxes, and he hadn't touched bases in a while. The proprietress took us upstairs to see some gorgeous slabs of wood, and then she treated us to ice cream. Lovely place -- stop in if you're driving HWY 1. The place was built using two giant, wooden water tanks.
This being California, sooner or later we had to stop at a produce stand, and Barn Fresh Produce was a worthy example. This despite the fact that one of their tractor drivers is missing his head.
Santa Cruz was our town for the night. Once again, Mike and Mom were breaking into the wine, glued to MSNBC, and Ernie and I opted for murder channels. The election was looming larger and larger, kind of like one of those ships headed straight for Crashy Rock.
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