Wednesday 8 June 2016

California Dreamin' - Carpintera

I slept well last night and therefore, after a coffee, we made a very early start (6:30am) to try and get ahead of the coast traffic towards LA...   5 miles down the road and it's foggy and cold - and that was not expected... Jumped onto Route 101 South and climb over towards the Pacific Coast.. could not see the sea through the mist...  

Then we arrived at Pismo State Beach.. It looked good from the road and a good spot for a photo..  We pulled off into the park and met with the man in the kiosk wearing a hat like Yogi bear has (let's just call him Adolf shall we)...  I explained that I had just ridden across the USA and would like to get a picture of me and the bike next to "his" Pacific Ocean....  That will be $10 said he, trying to hide his 'jobs worth attitude behind a fake smile'......  But I will only be 10 minutes I said ..  We don't do a 10 minute ticket so it will be $10....  With that we performed a perfect slow U-turn and gesticulated to him as we rode off....  As***le.....

Then I thought we would ride to Route 1 and get some scenery... Onto the 1 heading through Guadalupe - which when translated means "smells like cabbage".   This is the fruit and veg centre of California... miles and miles of Strawberries, Blueberries, Lettuce and Cabbages, not at all scenic...  Plus sand dunes complete with mist.....   Ah well back onto the 101 and the building morning traffic..  Finally dropped off the 101 at Carpintera to refuel and find a Motel for the night...  Now just 80+ miles from our final destination...

The bags have been unpacked and laid it out, and the food stuffs etc have been dumped and some of the clothing too as I don't want that to be seen in my luggage at the airport !!  Now, what to carry home and what to leave with the shippers.

Looks like I have missed the bad storms on the East Coast and the North and the extreme high temperatures in the mid USA.  102 degrees in Las Vagas!!

Just had a walk down to the beach to get a picture ----  mist on the hills and oil rigs off shore.... not too scenic either....