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Saturday, November 20, 2010

A Drive Up the Pacific Coast Highway

Hi all -- Dianne here.  With only a few days left in Morro Bay, Roger and I spent a day driving north up the Pacific Coast Highway from Morro Bay to just south of the Monterey Peninsula.  We took the Matrix, not the motorhome, on this excursion due to the twisty-curvy, narrow road.  


The weather forecast was for clear, sunny days for the next two days, and we debated which day we should take the drive.  It's a good thing we chose the day we did, because fog and rain moved into the area the second day, and we would have missed the spectacular views, had we waited.  


Jasper accompanied us.   We left Chaplin and Charlie the cat to mind the motor home.  Chaplin does not like riding in the car, and we knew he'd be happier at home.


We decided we were hungry, and stopped for a quick -- very delicious-- fried egg sandwich at a sandwich shop at Ragged Point.  A fried egg sandwich might not sound very exotic, but man-oh-man was it good!  The cook used crispy, buttery, grilled thick slices of bread.


We made occasional stops at turnouts to catch the beautiful scenery.  


One quick stop was at the Henry Miller "Library."  They have free coffee there (for a donation), and a small bookstore.  It's a very laid-back, artsy place.  






There was a very relaxed cat sunning itself on the porch.  We enjoyed a cup of coffee and listened to a young French family tutoring their children on the patio. 






After that quick stop, we drove on up the highway, stopping at yet more beautiful scenery stops along the way.  



I was surprised to see all the tall, golden pampas grass growing on the hillsides.  I'd never seen it growing wild before.


We turned around when we reached Carmel Highlands, and made the return trip south back to Morro Bay. 


 We saw the fog rolling in from a distance, and pretty soon we drove into it.  That ended our spectacular views.  The rest of the ride was twisty-curvy and nothing to see, and poor Jasper got car sick in the back.  I wore my "Sea Band" wrist bands, which helped, but by the time we got back to Morro Bay after our six-hour excursion up and back, I was feeling kinda green myself.


It's too difficult to choose which photos to include in this blog, so I made a slide show of all the photos from the drive, if you'd like to see them all.  If it's gray and dreary in Indiana right now, as it normally is in November, these might look pretty good to my friends back home!


Photo Slideshow - Pacific Coast Highway, Central California


Check back soon for another blog closing out our stay here in Morro Bay.  Now that we've discovered we can walk the dogs for miles and miles down the beach, we've decided it's our new favorite beach destination.  We're already trying to decide when we can
return and stay for a month or so!


The whippet photo of the day shows the boys cuddling on the couch during our morning "blogs and coffee time."  (You fulltime RV'ers know what that is!)  Chaplin is still wearing his "jammies," an old Christmas sweater that keeps him warm at night.  Jasper sleeps under the covers with us, but Chaplin prefers to sleep on the couch at night.  If he gets cold, I hear him pawing on the slipcover in the middle of the night, trying to turn it into a blanket.  I got tired of stumbling into the living room to cover him up with a real blanket (to keep from having a two-foot hole pawed into the couch), so from now on he wears "jammies" at night!!



3 comments:

Nancy and Bill said...

WOW - WOW - WOW!!!

Morrow Bay and The Pacific Coast Highway are high on our TODOS list now.

What a spectacular place and the views were amazing. Loved the slideshow!!

Safe Travels and Happy Trails......

Wayne and Maureen said...

Our planned trip out west will include a trip on this highponstway....thanks for the pictures.

Gin and Syl said...

The scenery looks breath-taking. I liked the shot of your dogs too. you can hardly tell which head goes with which body. Enjoying your west coast travels from the east coast.

Syl