Mileage - ~380 miles (via Santa Maria, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Los Banos)
Just realised that we've drank at least some alcohol every day since we got here (16 days)....
Stunning roads heading out of Santa Barbara through the hills - lovely lush green forests (Los Padres national forest), olive trees, lemon trees, strawberrys, vinyards, garlic, flowers, other plants, lakes and winding roads. I now realise why most American's don't go abroad - why? Everything is here from the rolling green hills and wine valleys of France through to the very best of Cornwall, the Alps, the deserts of Africa, rolling hills of Wiltshire....... Everything you could ever want to do is here, only it's cheaper, less congested and often cleaner and better.
We thought we saw Ice-T in a little place called Arroyo Grande, but we could have been wrong. We stopped at a nice vista point and saw some Muskrats (or something). We lobbed a few grapes and Doritos at them and then about 50 came out and started running toward us - we had to leg it into the car. We should have put one in the car, it would have helped to tidy-up the food on the floor of the car. About 5 miles up the road we stopped again to see hundreds of massive Elephant Seals basking in the sun. It was as windy as hell, and only 14C, despite the sun, so we didn't stay long.
We kind of blasted through the other places on the coastal road (apart from a quick detour to the Laguna Seca racetrack) before heading East toward Yosemite National Park, the scenery was constantly changing and amazing. We saw lots more vinyards and plantations and went past the huge San Luis resevoir. It now looks like we're in some amazing bit of Scotland. It started getting late so we've stopped for the night in some place near Los Banos (editor - Chris tells me that Los Banos means 'The Toilet' - which is a suitable name for the town). We checked into our first chain motel a Super 6 or something like that. It's OK, better than most of the places we stayed and only $55!
Highlights - seeing vultures eating a dead animal carcass, stunning green landscape and rolling hills, seeing cowboys on horseback, Muskrats (or funny squirrels), Highway 1 around Monterrey had some excellent views (lots of cliffs and trees) and bendy roads (but Jaf drove most of it so I couldn't squeal the tyres much) - amazing 100's of miles of perfect mountain roads all following the coast. Lots of motorbikes. Drove into Laguna Seca to have a quick look at the track. Mexican music on the radio at full blast. Seeing the artichoke growing centre of the world (this one was Jaffas - just a load of plants to me).
Lowlights - Lots of driving (380 miles), not really taking a good look at Santa Maria, Monterrey or Santa Cruz, it was actually quite cold outside of the car today despite the sun (as low as 11C).
Tomorrow - Yosemete park and back to the outskirts of San Francisco.
Andy and Jaf.
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