Last night we were delivered a bit of a punch to the stomach. We were very much looking forward to what is meant to be one of the most spectacular part of the coastal drive which is between Monterey and Santa Barbara
Back in Calgary when we were preparing for the drive we noticed that every time we attempted to google map this portion of the drive, that it would route us down the inland 101 highway instead of us going down the coastal highway #1. By chance we discovered that just past Big Sur the road was closed due to a very large land slide caused by a storm earlier in the year. They have been working continuously to clear the slip but there is still no date as to when it will be reopened.
Today was going to be one of our longest driving days of 560 kilometers but we decided to bite the bullet and still drive from Monterey to Big Sur to get a taste of the road. This was a distance of 50 kilometers each way. The short distance we did travel was very windy with huge drops down to the ocean off a road that clung to the side of the hill. Our first stop was at the Bixby Bridge which was built in 1932. It is one of the most photographed and scenic bridges in the state, with a 360-foot-long span and a 24-foot-wide clearance.
This stretch of the road may appear familiar to many people and that is because it is used for a lot of car ads. Somehow, we don’t think our old jalopy would make any of those ads. We continued to the small enclave of Big Sur and then turned around and headed back to Monterey to join highway 101. (Won’t mention the weather……..though it did rain later on for about 10 minutes which was novel.)
The drive was boring and straight except maybe areas where we went through huge market garden regions. We could see why they call California the food bowl of North America. The soil was almost black, and the farming was highly mechanised and what to us appeared to be Mexican workers working the fields.
The highway cut back towards the coast just north of Santa Barbara. It is significantly drier here and the road became rather scary with four lanes of traffic each way travelling at breakneck speeds.
We briefly stopped at Santa Barbara to let Toque out for a break and have a quick cup of tea.
It was then back in the car for another 100 kilometers further down the coast. We had made very good timing today which surprised us considering the detour at the beginning of the day, and we still had plenty of day light left, so we kept going.
We pulled into a town called Oxnard just off the highway as going further along the coast didn’t show any accommodation for about 120 kilometers. Tomorrow, we drive to Santa Monica down the last coastal stretch and then hold our breaths and make our way through the guts of Los Angeles on the spaghetti of highways to Palm Springs. This will probably be our biggest challenge to date on this trip. Today we covered a total of 650 kilometers – ugh!!
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