There is no more scenic road in the world than California’s Highway 1, stretching from just north of Santa Barbara all the way to just south of beautiful Shelter Cove, behind the redwood curtain. So when the heat, glare, noise and bad food of beautiful Death Valley drove me away I determined to light out for the coast post-haste.

Stopping only to buy agates and ammonite fossils at Shoshone, CA, I took the thin ‘blue highways’ through the empty lands: hwy 178S to 127S, hitting 115 west at the aptly named town of Baker.

Pushing my diminutive Korean Hyundai Accent 4-seat wheelchair at flank speed, turning on the AC only downhill to spare the tiny Korean ponies, I turned on to 58W at the desert waste that is Barstow, heading for Bakerspatch, where, hungry, butt-sore, sleepy and costive, I promptly got lost.

Checking my trusty road atlas (no GPS for us Luddites), I found myself on hwy 5N where I gratefully found a Super 8 motor hotel for the sum of only 7x the eponymous name of the chain. Where I relaxed, ate, showered, blogged, evacuated, and slept my usual 4 hours.

Refreshed and finally washed of desert soil, I motored off down the slowly greening hwy 58 until soon, but not very soon, I reached the sea south of the lovely village of Cambria ...and the sea and the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes… But in my case it was fog. Which was glorious after DV, but still, fog.

So I stopped at Moonstone beach and gathered many stones, probably none of which are moonstones, and lost a race with the waves soaking my cuffs. Motoring northward fatigue crept in upon me as it seems to do every day so stopped at San Simeon Beach State Park where I nabbed the very last campsite on the entire coast of California.

For which I was grateful despite its price ($23), and location conveniently close to the smelly chemical toilets and the noisy bridge over San Simeon Creek- exactly like my campsite at Death Valley, come to think of it.

But I was a happy camper, until I woke after my restful 4 hours of slumber to find my tent -and my pant legs still- soaking wet. But I did take these pictures before scuttling off homeward.

 

 

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