I like driving in my car.....
.......except it's wasn't technically my car. I hired it from Hertz, but it felt like it was mine, until I had to give it back to a man wearing dungarees at San Francisco International Airport.
I picked it up on Thursday morning from L.A airport, and from there I began my driving adventure up the west coast all the way to San Francisco where I am now.
After saying goodbye to my cousins Julie and Liz I drove out to Venice Beach. It was kind of quiet with it being December, but the weather's still warm here. The beach is dotted with homeless guys and 'artists' that try to sell you 'art' that they've assembled out of lumps of driftwood or budweiser bottle tops. I can imagine that during the summer it's absolutely heaving and must be a hell of a place to spend some time, but after a walk up and down I'd satisfied my curiosity and jumped back in the car to head for Santa Maria.
I drove the Pacific Coast Highway 1 all the way, which gives you a great view of the sea and the hills. It was pretty weird driving through Malibu, with the window down, sun shining and Band Aid on the radio........."do they know it's Christmas time"..........it didn't feel like it to me!
Anyway, the drive was great, I stopped in Santa Barbara for a bite to eat and then headed on to Santa Maria to my hotel. There's nothing much to do in Santa Maria so I updated the blog with news from Vegas and L.A, had a drink (obviously) and then went to bed.
On Friday I got up early, and hit the road to Monterey.
I thought I'd seen pretty much the best countryside and views that the USA has to offer when I got the train through the Rockys from Denver to Salt Lake City, but I was way off!
The coast line from Santa Maria to Monterey is like nothing I've ever seen before. The road I drove literally hangs from the side of the cliffs and hills that drop right into the water. It's a stupidly windy road and I was glad that I was driving on the right side rather than the left for a lot of it! I had to stop every 20 minutes or so to get photos of the beaches, cliffs and surf.
The road took me through Big Sur and then the rain started. By the time I got to Monterey it was chucking it down, so I found my hotel and headed off to the Aquarium to look at sharks, jellyfish and otters. Had it not been raining I'd have got a better look at the town, but I headed back to the hotel, freshened up and popped down the Brittania Arms for a bottle of water or two.
And then today I drove the last stretch up here to San Francisco.
It rained all the way which made it less enjoyable of a drive, not only that but and I kept passing dead skunks! I'd not smelt a skunk before today, but I can tell you that they smell remarkably similar to something that I once encountered wafting under the ktichen door of a student hall of residence.
I made it through the rain and all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge, where I parked up and took photos of the bridge and Alcatraz island. Then it was off to the youth hostel to dump my bags, off to the airport to dump the car, back into town to buy some work boots for New Orleans and then back here to the youth hostel........it's still raining!
So, tomorrow I've got an early start to catch a flight to New Orleans where I'll be spending 5 days volunteering on a rebuild project in the 9th Ward. I'll be clearing homes so that they can be renovated and made habitable again after the damage that hurricane Katrina did. I'm not sure how it's going to go or what exactly I'm going to be faced with when I get there, but i'm hoping to do my bit to help whilst I've got the chance.
M
ps - I'll do my best to get a whole new bunch of photos on the album soon, but time's been against me recently. As soon as I get the chance I'll let you know.
I picked it up on Thursday morning from L.A airport, and from there I began my driving adventure up the west coast all the way to San Francisco where I am now.
After saying goodbye to my cousins Julie and Liz I drove out to Venice Beach. It was kind of quiet with it being December, but the weather's still warm here. The beach is dotted with homeless guys and 'artists' that try to sell you 'art' that they've assembled out of lumps of driftwood or budweiser bottle tops. I can imagine that during the summer it's absolutely heaving and must be a hell of a place to spend some time, but after a walk up and down I'd satisfied my curiosity and jumped back in the car to head for Santa Maria.
I drove the Pacific Coast Highway 1 all the way, which gives you a great view of the sea and the hills. It was pretty weird driving through Malibu, with the window down, sun shining and Band Aid on the radio........."do they know it's Christmas time"..........it didn't feel like it to me!
Anyway, the drive was great, I stopped in Santa Barbara for a bite to eat and then headed on to Santa Maria to my hotel. There's nothing much to do in Santa Maria so I updated the blog with news from Vegas and L.A, had a drink (obviously) and then went to bed.
On Friday I got up early, and hit the road to Monterey.
I thought I'd seen pretty much the best countryside and views that the USA has to offer when I got the train through the Rockys from Denver to Salt Lake City, but I was way off!
The coast line from Santa Maria to Monterey is like nothing I've ever seen before. The road I drove literally hangs from the side of the cliffs and hills that drop right into the water. It's a stupidly windy road and I was glad that I was driving on the right side rather than the left for a lot of it! I had to stop every 20 minutes or so to get photos of the beaches, cliffs and surf.
The road took me through Big Sur and then the rain started. By the time I got to Monterey it was chucking it down, so I found my hotel and headed off to the Aquarium to look at sharks, jellyfish and otters. Had it not been raining I'd have got a better look at the town, but I headed back to the hotel, freshened up and popped down the Brittania Arms for a bottle of water or two.
And then today I drove the last stretch up here to San Francisco.
It rained all the way which made it less enjoyable of a drive, not only that but and I kept passing dead skunks! I'd not smelt a skunk before today, but I can tell you that they smell remarkably similar to something that I once encountered wafting under the ktichen door of a student hall of residence.
I made it through the rain and all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge, where I parked up and took photos of the bridge and Alcatraz island. Then it was off to the youth hostel to dump my bags, off to the airport to dump the car, back into town to buy some work boots for New Orleans and then back here to the youth hostel........it's still raining!
So, tomorrow I've got an early start to catch a flight to New Orleans where I'll be spending 5 days volunteering on a rebuild project in the 9th Ward. I'll be clearing homes so that they can be renovated and made habitable again after the damage that hurricane Katrina did. I'm not sure how it's going to go or what exactly I'm going to be faced with when I get there, but i'm hoping to do my bit to help whilst I've got the chance.
M
ps - I'll do my best to get a whole new bunch of photos on the album soon, but time's been against me recently. As soon as I get the chance I'll let you know.
posted by Wallace at
3:49 AM
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