June 30, 2015

After a nice quiet evening we have an awesome breakfast with Maxine (baked peaches, fresh fruit, eggs with spinach, feta and tomato and bacon). We pack up, it's getting easier, I have a place for everything until DeeDee throws the proverbial monkey wrench into the works, a "Dirty Laundry Bag". Sure it all measures out to be the same volume, but it's one more bag, ugh. It was hard enough convincing her that underwear has more than a 1 day life. So I pull out all the 'dirty' clothes and stuff them into bags and spaces and get it all packed in and off we go with temps in the mid 80's.
No hitches this morning, every turn is on the map and correct. The first 20 miles is a beautiful twisty 2 lane coming down out of the mountains to the town of Taft and 20 miles of The Petroleum Highway, a straight flat road through thousands of  oil wells, and temps back up in the 100's. We then turn of the oil road onto Lone Pine Canyon rd, 50 miles of cool prairie road with hundreds of turns and no traffic, this drops down to a huge plain with several Solar Farms and thousands of Solar Panels, it's nice to see someone trying alternative energy. The temp reaches 112, no shade or stores and 40 miles to go. We hit the highway and find water and shade and then head north for about 15 miles, then west towards the coast and the Big Sur Highway we've heard so much about. By the time we hit the coast the temp has dropped through the pleasant 70's and 80's down to 63, about a 50 degree change in 1 hour! We stop and unbelievably add layers. The road is certainly beautiful and would really be fun if it wasn't for the never ending line of cars and pokey motor homes. Hundreds of people stopped at every overlook, and several hundred stopped gawking at a few seals,  and another hundred stopped looking at a herd of zebras, yup zebras. WTF. The day is going ok, we've chalked up 250 miles, no snags, so we start looking for a place to stay when 'plunk'  something hits my leg, my Go-Pro mount broke and down the road bouncing goes my camera. We turn around and search, finally stopping and walking the road. We find it and other than the case being trashed, the camera is ok, but that's the second time those cheap Go-Pro mounts have broken. Time to write a letter (lucas!)
Most of the hotels we stop at are full  so we head to Carmel and it's rush hour so we sit in bumper to bumper traffic and finally get down town and grab the first motel we find. There's a beer and wine shop next door....  so life is good.