Who of our estimate readers (other than American readers) heard about Grand Canyon? Everyone. How about Death Valley? Most of you. And who heard about Big Sur? Not many, unless you’ve been here, you’d like to go there or you read about the area. Even those who read Jack Kerouc were probably so fed up after “On the road” that they didn’t read to his "Big Sur".
We didn’t know too much either. And we gave up “On the road" half way through. All we knew about Big Sur is that there’s a line about it in Red Hot Chilli Peppers "Road Trippin’", but unless you see it with your own eyes you don’t really know what they mean by "Blue, you sit so pretty west of the 1".
We have to say it’s one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen. It was 100 miles of uplifted journey, touching the ocean on one side and beautiful green mountains on the other. At some point we thought the grass on the hills looked like suede, which was actually close to true, as it was green fabric preventing landslides. Anyhow it was beautiful experience. The road winds up to 300 feet over the ocean so close to the rim of a sheer cliff that it makes you dizzy (going south is even more scary). Pacific Ocean hits dramatically on rocks and the shore is covered by a thin fog.. And that intense blue up to the horizon. It’s pure magic.
We read many discussions on internet on whether to go or not on this part of the „1” by any kind of RV. Road is described there as winding, dangerous and killing for a regular car towing something. But when it comes to how difficult it is let’s just say it’s just as difficult as an average Polish county road. The biggest problem for Americans seems to be that it has just one (!!!) lane each way. Ok, it is sometimes narrow, but not that narrow that two RVs would have any problems passing each other. If you tow a trailer you are slower than the rest of the traffic but there are pullouts every few miles so you can let the faster cars through. And that’s what we did. Besides, half of the road we drove just before sunset, so it was really empty. We could just enjoy the sun disappearing behind the horizon.
There was one disadvantage of driving with a trailer. Most of the attractions on the route are not accessible for cars with trailers. Even towns at the end of this most beautiful part of the “1”, like Carmel for example are not a good idea. We tried it but narrow and steep streets scared us off very quickly.
And what is accessible with a trailer? There is Hearst Castle, which is a residence built by William Hearst (Aviator guy). We skipped it, unfortunately, as we had a bad timing. It’s worth to see different parks like Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Not for trailers, so we had to skip it. We stopped for a coffee at Nepethe. Not the cheapest place but the views were well worth it. One of the guests at the next table said he saw a whale but we didn’t.
We drove through often photographed Bixby Bridge standing 240 feet over water, built in 1930s. There is of course a view point. Some people standing there mistook us by the Russians. Which is an irony as there was a couple of guys there looking like New York hipsters with huge photo cameras and rental C-class, and they were real Russians. That’s what Russians look like these days!
We slept under the sky full of stars at free campsite (or actually at the pull-out of a back Nacimento-Fergusson road) not far north from San Simeon. Beautiful spot on the steep hill with an ocean view. It was so steep we didn’t even try to level the trailer, but still it was a wonderful night. For those who are ready to pay to have a level ground there is Kirk Creek Campground nearby. It’s said to be one of 10 most beautiful campgrounds in the USA and is not very expensive (a little bit over 20 USD).
We left „1” in Monterey. From there we went to ”regular” highway - 101 to quickly get to San Francisco, or, to be more precise, to San Jose, where we had a „reservation” at a parking lot of Polish church. Monterey used to be a capital of Spanish and Mexican California. It has a few interesting buildings from the end of 18th and beginning of 19th century. We stopped there mostly for late lunch and skipped sightseeing.
There is a port with a pier with lots of restaurants. Most of them give free clam chowder samples, so if you like it and you’re looking for free food you can just walk back and forth. We’re not really into seafood so we sat down in a restaurant at the end of a pier for a fish. It was ok but nothing special.
There were also sea lions (or maybe seals?) on a platform just by the pier. It was fun to look at them for a while. They were discussing some sea lion issues, making sea lion pyramids and just playing in the water. But we had to leave them after and head to San Jose, which was our base camp for the next few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment