Driving high on PCH

Yesterday was a great day, if only I could overlook the fact I spent 13 hours in the car. Bad planning on my part and two unforeseeable circumstances got me to my hotel at about 9pm.




Ok, so I was tired and checked out of my hotel at 7am instead of 6am like I had planned. I'm on vacation so I can make those choices. But after breakfast at the Denny's, next door to the Motel 6, I didn't get on the road until just before 8am. Rush hour. The 405 was packed. I guess I should have planned for that. I took the 405 north of L.A., then headed over to the ocean on the 10. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for having navigated to Hwy 1, also called Pacific Coast Highway (PCH)



Now when I got to PCH, the first thing I noticed was the signs giving the distance to San Francisco. I had counted on about 400 miles for the day. Having driven about 40 miles already, I was just a bit surprised to see I had well over 400 miles yet to drive. It then hit me that the Atlas showed miles on the Interstate, not twisty, winding, curvy, hill roads that follow the whims of the coast. But I am on vacation, so I can chose to take the scenic route.

So I drove PCH up past Malibu Beach, and the town of Malibu. Then it occurred to me that only in the U.S. would people name a town and a beautiful beach after an automobile. I drove past Pepperdine University. I had always wondered where that was, but not enough to look it up.

Then the first of the unforeseen circumstances hit. I was within a few miles of the city of Oxnard, when they closed the highway due to wildfires.

They made us all turn around and go back the way we had come. Now in this area PCH has the ocean on one side of it and low mountains on the other. I had to backtrack about 15 miles to a road ironically called Mulholland Highway. Highway it was not. It was two lanes of the narrowest, hilliest, serpentine asphalt I have ever seen. Most of the curves, which were in quite abundance, had a recommended speed of 15 to 20 miles per hour. It took about 50 minutes to get over to Highway 101 and start north again. I finally got to Oxnard about 2 hours after I would have been there had they not closed the road. Oh well, I'm on vacation and I got to enjoy Mulholland Highway. I got back onto PCH about half way up to San Francisco. I am so glad I did.

As I drove along Pacific Coast Highway, I saw signs for the Hearst Mansion. At that point I didn't have time to stop, but I wished I did. It would have been interesting to see a giant house made out of long black limousines designed to carry caskets. But I did take a picture from the road as I passed.

I saw an intriguing sign about some seals, so I stopped and took a picture of it. I also photographed the seals.

The seal in the picture below is a very important seal. It is the famous 'Seal of Approval' that you hear so much about.

A few miles north of the seals, PCH started to rise above the ocean, providing magnificent views at every corner, of which there were many. I stopped at a lot of the scenic overlooks, but certainly not all of them.

As I was withing 60 miles of Monterrey, and the end of the scenic route, circumstance number two hit. The highway department had chosen this week to add a wire mesh over some of the hillsides above the highway. And they used a helicopter to do it. So they shut down the road for an hour at a time, then let a line of cars pass, then closed it again. I didn't make it through in the first group, so I got to sit again. It was only a two hour delay, but hey, I'm on vacation.

But at least the second place I had to stop had a view.

And here is a picture of the troublemaker. I took this picture out of the car window as I passed.

I ended up getting to San Francisco well after dark. I intensely dislike driving in large strange cities at night where I don't have the sun to help me keep my bearings and where it is much harder to see and read signs. But I finally made it to the Best Inn, near the intersection of Lombard and Van Ness streets. I am about 10 blocks from the Fisherman's Wharf. I will be heading there in a few minutes.

I will take pictures and blog again tonight or tomorrow morning.