PCH
I got up early this morning with this grand plan to take my time driving down the Pacific Coast Highway (CA-1), and spend the night camping on some random beach north of LA. Unfortunately, reality had other plans, and I'm back home this evening after spending nearly 11 hours driving. The problems were two-fold. First, every campground that I passed was already full for the entire weekend (apparently, I needed to make reservations weeks in advance to go camping *sigh*). Secondly, it was actually raining in southern california. Somehow, the two times that I've been to SoCal this year, its been raining. This has to be some kind of perverse record. Now, I'm not opposed to camping when it rains, but seeing as how I couldn't even find a real campground, I was definitely not going to sleep in my car while its raining outside. So I ended up driving as far south as Santa Barbara (which is where I first encountered the rain) along CA-1 and then US-101, and then driving back home on US-101.
Ignoring the lack of camping fiasco, I actually had a pretty good time on the drive down. I cut out to CA-1 just north of Monterrey, and the fog & clouds were starting to break up. I had really great light with the sun rising over the coastal range as I came up to the famous Bixby Bridge. I think this shot came out even better (looking north).
I was hoping to check out McWay Falls, which is one of a rare few waterfalls in California which plunges into the ocean. I almost missed it and did a quick U-turn, and then saw this.
Further south, I got a few more pictures. However, the further south I drove, the more clouds & fog started to move in.
A few miles north of San Simeon, I came upon a sizable elephant seal colony. There were probably a few hundred of them just sunning themselves on the beach, occasionally flipping sand and snorting.
Morro Bay has the huge, striking Morro Rock sitting just off the coast, and I saw it when was I still several miles north.
The PCH really makes it last stand in Pismo Beach before heading inland where it winds its way through farm land and tiny towns. It officially ends about 20 miles north of Santa Barbara where it intersects (for the 2nd time, heading south) with US-101. I ended up stopping for lunch in Pismo Beach, on the beach itself. The weather was still somewhat sunny, and the beach is huge. Its at least a half mile wide, and several miles long.
US-101 actually rejoins the coast a few miles north of Santa Barbara, but at that point the sky was overcast, and the fog was starting to roll in. I did see, what appeared to be oil drilling platforms a few miles off the coast. There was a steady rain by the time I got to the beach front in Santa Barbara. About the only thing that I learned is that the affluent section of Santa Barbara is the west side of town, and that there aren't many direct streets that lead to the coast (most are rather curvy, and hilly).
The drive down (with all the assorted stops) to Santa Barbara took about 7.5 hours. The drive home, straight up US-101 took about 3.5 hours.
The rest of the pictures are up at the usual location.