Day 12 • San Luis Obispo

Day 12: Wednesday, August 5—

I was eager to leave the Hollister Inn. There was a lot to see and do, and I didn’t like the place. To top it off, Eric’s glucose monitor wasn’t working. So we quickly loaded our stuff and ourselves in the car and took off in search of breakfast and a Walmart to buy a new monitor.

We ate breakfast at a McDonald’s in Hollister, dining al fresco on this beautiful sunny morning. Afterwards, we drove around town in search of a Walmart. Having failed to locate one, we took off and promptly got lost. We drove aimlessly for about 5 to10 miles until we found California Route 156, which was on our map and happened to be the route we were looking for. Route 156 took us to the town of San Juan Bautista, where we stopped at the post office to mail a few post cards. Then we explored this lovely, out-of-the-way, little central California town. The most memorable stop was at Country Peddler Miniatures, a shop that sold an odd assortment of Native American artifacts, dollhouse furniture, animal skins, jewelry, and other collectables. We purchased earrings for Sharon, a lynx-printed rabbit’s fur for Travis, a coonskin hat for Eric (at last), and a Native American hand-crafted bone choker for me. Our next stop was at the Walmart in Salinas, where we picked up a new blood-glucose monitor for Eric.

The next attraction on the itinerary was the much anticipated 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach. This short stretch of coastal highway cost $7 to access and started off like a $7 rip-off—all we saw for the first few miles was a bunch of nothing-special houses with the Pacific Ocean nowhere in sight. But then ocean came into view, and the drive skirted the coast, and the view became spectacular. Our first stop was a small beach with a nearby walk-through garden, all of which was nice except it was windy and chilly. Next, we stopped at Seal Rock Picnic Area, where hundreds of seals lounged on a tiny offshore island called Seal Rock. Our final and far and away most memorable stop was a roadside park near Pescadero Point. It was perched high on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific and had a Zen-like vibe with its giant driftwood, boulders, and small, gnarled, and ancient-looking evergreen trees. Beside the park was a house resembling a castle and capturing our fantasy. I later heard that the self-help guru Anthony Robbins lived or had lived there, which turned out to be inaccurate, and learned that it was called the Crocker-Irwin Mansion. Finally, we drove past the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links and thus concluded our tour of 17-Mile Drive, which was worth every penny of that $7 admission fee and then some.

A few miles down the road, we stopped at Carmel-by-the Sea. This small but vibrant and manicured town, where actor Clint Eastwood once presided as mayor, struck us as being all about shopping, specifically that which catered to the up-scale tourist. So we felt a bit out of our element. Nonetheless, we enjoyed browsing through the boutiques and walking along the tree-lines malls. We particularly enjoyed our lunch at Caffe del Mare on Mission Street. We dined in the cozy courtyard in the rear—a lovely spot which we had to ourselves and where we slaked our thirsts and enjoyed a tasty repast. Travis ordered, as he was wont to do, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, perhaps with banana slices. Our waiter remarked how that sounded delightful and he might just have one himself. That comment, I thought, went a long way to bringing this hoity-toity town down to earth.

About 2:30 PM we departed Carmel-by-the Sea and promptly hit a traffic jam. Once that was cleared, the rest of the day was spent motoring down California State Route 1. Owing to recent mudslides, or some such calamity, many sections of the highway were still undergoing repairs, which in turn caused repeated traffic delays. The delays, of course, were not ideal, but if you’re going to be stuck in traffic, it might as well be on California 1 because, for my money, it is the most scenic highway in the world. Obviously, I’ve navigated only a tiny sample of the world’s roadways, and some of them have amazed me, like those in southern Utah a few days before. But I can’t imagine any drive more spectacular than the Big Sur section of California State Route 1, where the roadway for long stretches zigs and zags along a narrow ledge at the precipice where the Santa Lucia Range plunges into the Pacific Ocean. One sharp bend in the road follows another, one stunning vista precedes the next, one dizzying span over a two-hundred-foot gorge is only to be surpassed by what’s around the bend.

The weather we encountered during this drive was peculiar—the sky to our left, which was over the Santa Lucia Range, was sunny and blue, while to our right, which was over the Pacific, was for the most part cloudy and foggy, at times exceedingly so. And aside from the road and the other motorist, there were almost no signs of civilization. The highway wound through Los Padres National Forest and past Big Sur. At one point, we exited onto a sideroad that led through the Kirk Creek Campground. Put this campground in most any other place, and it would be nothing special. But where it was, it struck me as the campground from heaven.

And so it went—a few more construction delays, a lot more awesome scenery, until a few miles north of San Simeon, where the flattened out and highway came out of the hills and headed inland. Shortly before dusk, we stopped in San Simeon, home to the famous Hearst Castle, for dinner at a Mexican restaurant called El Chorlito. The food came in large portions but was rather bland. After dinner we checked out seemingly every motel (about five in all) along this stretch of highway but came up empty handed because they were either full or too expensive. So we moved on.

So we drove another 40 miles farther to San Luis Obispo, where with the help of a gas station attendant, we succeeded in finding the Best Western Royal Oak Hotel. The hotel had vacancies, it looked nice, and it was getting late. We took it.