Cayucos Beach Inn

... more well known Napa Sonoma area. After following country lanes, you might find yourself at someone's house. Often the tasting room is actually in the winery. In recent years, the wineries have started charging to taste, but the cost is absorbed when you buy a bottle. We spent part of the day talking to people about their wines. Being the middle of the week, we were often the only ones tasting ...

... sea. We find our motel, having driven past a
sign telling us San Simeon has a population of 442... Pretty much
nothing going on here! Drove to the next biggest town, Cambria for
lunch, this town actually had some shops and a petrol station! The
petrol station also had vacuums so we took advantage of this and
cleaned the inside of the car ready for returning ...

... gotten a late start, but it is just such a great ride. The fog was starting to creep in, so we headed back towards Morro, stopping wherever the camera urge struck.
We stopped in Cayucos, the little town just north of Morro Bay. It is a more developed town with tons of antique outlets. You could wander for quite a while in the stores. But we just strolled around the town and headed back to Morro as the sun was starting to dip and ...

... for mom as this is the way my father and her used to travel when they took the motor home out. As usual we ran into the ever present road construction, but the slow travel only gave me opportunities to see the sights. We came up over a hill and pulled off on a scenic overlook and took the short hike to the scenic point. It overlooked the Santa Ynez river valley. You could smell the pines and we found some wildflowers still ...

... what everyone had stopped for. We got out of the car and couldn't believe what we were seeing (and smelling). The beach was covered in Elephant Seals! We could have watched them for hours, they are so funny. The way they move across the sand and then flop down all of sudden for a rest. They are really noisy as well and seem to always been arguing with each other. It was brilliant watching them in their natural environment (see video).

We arrived in ...

We arrived in LA just in time to see the sunset at the amazing Venice Beach (no signs of the Hoff though!). All the shops along the beach front were just shutting down but at least we got to see a few of the characters that hang around, a little bit like Hollywood Boulevard - a few tourists and a lot of weirdos either shouting at others or themselves. We didn't have anywhere to stay so we drove through Malibu, unsurprisingly it was all a little expensive so we took a random turn off the ...

So after 11 Months and 11 days I got back home again, just in time for thanksgiving. It was a really great trip. My favorite countries definitely have to be Argentina and Colombia. My favorite stop by far was Cordoba Argentina. I definitely covered some ground. I estimate that I traveled around 14,000 miles overland, and another 15,000 in an airplane.

We woke after a light sleep to a dull, wet misty day. This was to be the day we drove "The Big Sur", named by the Spaniards "El Grand Sur - The Big South", it is one of the classic drives in the world, following the California Coast in blue skies, overlooking blue sea...... Oh well, some you win. Do we stay another day hoping it will clear or press on and miss it ? The Canadians and Americans have 'The Weather Channel', a dedicated 24 hour ...

... buses and crawled all over it. We ate clam chowder out of bread bowls at the waterfront, dined on fresh crab sandwiches, shopped in Macy's, Banana Republic, Abercrombie and Fitch (well Cath did!) and strolled around the parks. Phil loved Haight Ashbury, where the 1967 summer of love started. It was a bit like Glastonbury/Camden, with funky coffee shops, incense and tie-dye everywhere. Here we discovered the Beyond Prozac smoothie - shot of expresso, banana, peanut butter, milk ...