The penultimate leg of our trip was a 1500 mile (2400 kms) drive down the west coast of USA from Seattle to Los Angeles. This is said to be one of the best coast drives in the world and generally it lives up to its reputation.
From Seattle we passed through lots of small towns that we had never heard of before like Seaside, Depoe Bay, Arcata, Coos River and Bodega Bay. North of San Francisco, the area is quite remote and relatively thinly populated compared to the better known areas such as Carmel
 Neil at sunset on the beach at Carmel |
 Courthouse Santa Barbara |
We also had to deal with driving through San Francisco - this time we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge without Ann screaming about rubbing the side mirrors off on the bridge as she did in 2002 and we survived the organised mayhem of the Los Angeles freeways - it certainly helps using a GPS.
In the main we drove down the Highway 1 or 101 which were usually quite peaceful and a pleasure to drive compared with the rat race of the interstates where the lemmings seem to be intent to get to B and don’t care about what there is in between. Even with those that get off the main road, the Bill Bryson principle seems to apply - if you can’t take a picture from the car you don’t stop and look.
Our approach was to the contrary. We did stop often and enjoyed the magnificent scenery. Our only barrier was the weather where we faced the tail end of a hurricane which crossed the Pacific and blew us away as well as bucketing rain for a couple of days. Then we had to put up with heavy fog but in between we had lovely weather.
One benefit of the wild weather is that we saw the sea at its most dramatic, crashing against the cliffs and over the little inshore islands.
The great scenery went on for days pretty much until we reached San Simeon after the Big Sur region about 200 mile (300 kms) north of Los Angeles. I am not sure that our pictures do the scenery justice partly because half of them are almost black and white with the overcast and foggy days.
In addition to the coastal scenery we were awed once again to drive through the giant coastal redwoods, truly magnificent trees.
 Avenue of the Giants California |
Niagara Falls - that’s big.
 Neil beside Dyerville Giant (fallen redw... |
We had some good wildlife viewing opportunities - huge sea lions and elephant seals,
 Sea lions at Cape Arago |
 Elephant seal |
a bright green hummingbird and a glossy blue/black woodpecker plus elk and deers . We also had a distant view of two grey whales - we could see a shape and their spouts but not a great view. We are also claiming a sight of the rare Californian condor - it was big but a very long way away. So all in all it was a very good trip and well worth it for anyone that is interested.
Now for a hurricane watch in Baja California and home.
