Week 1: Success!

Week 1 of our world tour: Pretty awesome!


Not having any reservations is only turning out to be a minor hassle. We are using our camping book as more of a guide rather than the gospel truth. We learned this pretty early as our first destination, which strangely got 7 points out of a possible ten, was Oceano Dunes. It was basically a parking lot for people to sleep in between shifts of ripping up the dunes in their ATVs. The beach was actually quite pretty minus the cars driving up and down the shore. Lots of jelly fish were washed up on the shore for some reason. Anyway, we didn’t get much sleep because some dude with a modified muffler woke us up at around 1 AM as he spent about a half hour trying to park his ride and hitch. So we promptly moved on the next morning bright and early.


Next potential stop was Morro Bay. We rolled on up there in about a couple of hours, but it was totally packed. Instead, we stayed off of the bay in the awesome El Chorro camp site. Diane and I both really liked it and met some mountain bikers from LA who gave us some good tips about where to set up, find some trails, etc. It was a pretty nice place to stay and we did a couple of nature walks, one of which had some old Chumash bowl shaped markings in a large rock. Diane and I thought it would be funny to make a joke about Lucky Charms, but I can’t really think of a good punch line.


Next we ventured up Highway 1, a beautiful drive indeed! A little nerve racking with the all windiness and speedy drivers, but it was breathtaking nonetheless. We made quite a few stops along the way, including a really nice turnoff where we walked along the beach, and a lunch stop at Ragged Point at the beginning of the Big Sur area. We skipped taking a look at the elephant seal colony which the nice man at the Ragged Point mini-mart told us we should turn back and see, but we decided not to because there were a ton of people there.


We continued on for the rest of the day through Big Sur. There was no camping to be found anywhere. Everything was still closed and you could see why. The fires had definitely taken their toll on the beautiful landscape, but it was still amazing to see. There were many signs praising the bravery and thanking the kindness of all of the firefighters who protected the natural beauty. Someone was even offering free fireman kisses.


We ended up forging our way ahead, past Carmel and into Monterey. Diane had the wonderful idea of going straight to the visitor’s center where we found out about the cheapest rooms they had at the Casa Verde Inn. It was $39 bucks for the smoking room the first night, only ten more bucks than our night in the Pismo parking lot, so we took two days. Monterey was awesome. We took our own personal tour of the historic area, including the old customs building. We read a lot about the history of the place, from the time that the peaceful Rumsien Indians were the caretakers, until Spain and then Mexico took control of the area and Father Junipero Serra forced them to become Christian. We walked all around and ate some food and had some beer at a pub. We talked to some folks from Houston who were very nice and were down for the Grand Prix (which is why we were taking off the following morning). I also went into Hellam’s Tobacco Shop that had some really good pipes and tobacco. I had never seen a Dunhill in a store before, but they had these cool limited edition Christmas Pipes from a decade ago for a paltry $1200. I ended up getting some Navy Flake from Chris, a really nice guy with an eye patch who learned me a little more about pipe smoking than I knew before. Bonus: he looked just like the sea captain from the Simpsons, or Captain Crunch, depending on who you asked. Diane says Simpsons, Matt says Crunch.


Next we made our way to Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck. It turned out to be like a Sunglass Hut row (joke courtesy of Diane) and we made haste to get the hell outta there via the green trolley. We did run into one cool guy named Dan on the row though who was a local fisherman in Monterey and had an excellent hat that looked like it had been through a lot. We talked for a bit since he told me to never let a lady walk on the outside of the sidewalk. At one point he complemented another man on his hat as he walked by; "Nice hat sir. You should never buy a hat that has more character than you!"


We then made our way back to the motel room for the night so we could wake up early. We headed out the next morning and decided to head up to Sonoma County to a place called Doran Bay. We were hoping to get a place there, but weren’t sure how it would turn out. As we got close to our destination, we noticed a Visitor’s Center and stopped there first. It was good that we did because the nice lady told us about Ocean Cove, a private campground that never gets filled up 28 miles north and she loves it better than anything else around. And it was beautiful… and cold! We stayed a couple of days there and took in the beautiful scenery before heading out again.


We spent most of the day after Monterey driving up the 101 and ended up at Richardson Grove State Park. We were shocked to get a spot since most places on Reserve America were completely booked. Due to our good fortune, we stayed a couple of days in the middle of a bunch of beautiful Redwoods, Douglas Firs, Mandrones, and Oaks. And there were showers! After a wonderful 2 day stay with hiking and lounging, we decided we were a bit camped out and would look for a motel to lay our weary heads.


So, we drove all day Tuesday up to Ashland Oregon where we are now, enjoying a nice big bed and television in an Econolodge. We should be here for a couple of days and will check out the Shakespeare Festival. Check out all the photos here.