Day 9: Rocky (the raccoon!)

Our day began with a laugh, breakfast on the terrace was interrupted by a raccoon on the roof opposite, he did his business, sniffed about a bit, and then wandered off, very entertaining!

It's "Rocky" the raccoon

We left San Luis Obispo about 9:30 and headed for the coast road, the Pacific Highway 1 to be precise. This is a famous scenic route, often included in those "10 best drives ever" lists, and it didn't disappoint. Soon after reaching the ocean we stopped at San Simeon, (famous for Randolph Hearst's castle), there was a pier, and from the pier we watched a whale breaching, dolphins cruising around, sea otters and loads of other wild life. We don't have binoculars or a really good camera with us, (I use the iPad for photos), so didn't get any decent pictures.

The Hearst estate chapel

5 miles further north we came across a beach full of basking elephant seals, at first you may think they're dead, but they are very much alive, and massive! https://youtu.be/Q_tIsTxXsVE

No they're not dead, just "basking"!

After this whale sightings became rather common place, we could have stopped every couple of miles. The road is very spectacular, last about 90 miles and "gas" stations are few and far between, the road really is remote and when we were able to fill up it was a relief.

90 odd miles of twists and turns, and breathtaking views!

Our lodgings in Carmel are great, this Airbnb system is a wonderful arrangement, we are staying in an upstairs apartment, the owners live below. We are very close to down town Carmel, which is extremely trendy and full of exclusive little boutiques and "studios".

We are up the stairs... It's about 8:30 pm.

Day 8: Pelican Brief

First thing this morning we visited the old Spanish Mission church, the settlement which basically founded this town in the 17th century, it was charming and well worth a look-see, we also saw the local Police handcuffing and "frisking" a surly youth by the river - all very exciting.

A "belle" next to some bells!

Next we decided to drive to the ocean, Morro Bay is about 6 miles west and has a nature reserve and a fishermen's quay, sea food cafes and "taffy" stalls - think Whitby with sea otters. It was a nice place to visit, (as is Whitby actually), but the weather wasn't too good, misty low clouds and and a chilly sea breeze. Fishing boats were coming in regularly and gulls, pelicans, grebes and terns were all over the bay.

A feeding frenzy that doesn't involve me or doughnuts! Gulls, a pelican and an osprey...

Outside a harbour "Gifte shoppe"

We were going to try to find the road junction nearby where James Dean famously had his fatal car crash, but distances here are always much further than you realise and decided several hours looking for a T junction in the middle of nowhere was probobaly a recipe for getting lost, so perhaps not a good idea.

James Dean crashed his sports car and was fatally injured on Highway 46, near SLO

San Luis Obispo has a Farmer's market on Thursday evenings, and so we paid it a visit later, it was really atmospheric, huge barbecues, live music, fresh fruit and veg and plenty of crowds. We bought a fruit pie, some marmalade and wandered about soaking up the atmosphere, tomorrow we move on to Carmel.

The market seemed more like a local fete!

Day 7: My beautiful launderette

OOn the road again, leaving Santa Barbara and driving north on Highway 1 to San Luis Obispo - known locally as "Slo". We drove through some really extreme farming country, hundreds of fruit pickers in the fields and small towns full of grain silos. We stopped at a town called Lompoc, which has an annual "mural" competition, loads of house and shop ends were decorated with huge paintings, some interesting, some pretty awful.

Some of Lompoc's winning murals.

We arrived in San Luis Obispo mid afternoon, and our apartment is really great! We booked it through Air B and B, and the whole process is simple, also we like it because it's dealing with individuals rather than multi national corporations. The accommodation is a cosy 1st floor "studio" about 3 blocks from downtown SLO.

Our "lodgings, through the blue door and upstairs - that's the rental car too.

SLO is a lovely little town, small independent shops and lots of restaurants, it also has an unusual attraction, a short  passageway known as "Bubble gum Alley", where the walls on both sides are literally covered in lumps of discarded chewing gum... Pretty gross, but definitely different!

"Bubblegum" Alley - tons and tons of chewy.

We'e running low on clean clothes and were hoping that this apartment would have a washing machine, but unfortunately it hasn't, so we went in search of a laundromat. Several blocks away we found one and whiled away an hour reading our Kindles and watching our "smalls" tumble around... An  experience!

The glamour of it all!

Day 6: Room with a view, (not!)

I'm Our room is small and gloomy and not much fun to,stay in, so we spent most of the day out and about. We both went for an early run before breakfast, the beach front area was full of joggers and power walkers at 7:00, but I suppose this is California after all!

After breakfast we went to collect our hire car, the Hertz agent for the area is based at the Sea front Hilton, a truly massive and extremely stylish hotel, it occurred to me as we were hanging around the Foyer that we could easily blag another breakfast...

It's tough, but someone has to do it!

After collecting the car we headed for the hills east of Santa Barbara, because we'd been told there were wineries and vineyards aplenty, and so there were, and we found ourselves glasses in hand at a small family run business near Ballard called "Lincroft". Our "tasting" session involved sampling 5 different wines, we were taught the etiquette of "nosing" the wine - as in; it's considered rude to put your nose in your wine, and lots of apparently educated phrases to use whilst drinking - as in; "a hint of tangerine zest and citrus on the palate", and, "flavours rich and layered, full of tart cherry and forest floor", Aldi's bottle of the week will never be the same.

After the winery we came across a really weird small town, Solvang. This place is known as the "Danish capital of America", and it truly is a "Disneyfied" version of a small Danish town 100 years ago. Obviously founded by Danish immigrants in the 1880's, the place now is full of pastry shops, windmills and arty clothes outlets, (I didn't see any Lego or crime writers though).

A Danish bakery in Solvang

Hans Christian Anderson statue to continue the Danish theme.

Back in SB, (as we locals call the place), we explored downtown and discovered it was "farmer's market" day, really atmospheric and a great opportunity to people watch. 

Several years ago in New York I bought a cap from a shop called "Goorin Brothers" , it was a real favourite and I was upset to carelessly  lose it whilst on a pub crawl in London last year. Anyway, we came across the west coast Goorin shop, and without much persuasion I bought a replacement, but I'm under orders not to wear this one when out drinking.

The Goorin hat!

A walk along the beach, wetting our toes in the ocean was a nice end to the day, we came across a mini nature reserve, and Jan's ornithological skills were tested once more: "these birds are bloody medium sized"...

Day 5: On the Road

 Today was the day that I was a bit apprehensive about, we were leaving the Grand Canyon and driving to Flagstaff to catch a plane to Santa Barbara. The issue was timing, we had to drop the car off at Flagstaff airport at 1:30 pm and the drive was about 220 miles - when to set off? What if we break down? Will we find the airport easily? How will I continue this blog if the question mark symbol fails?

We set off at about 8:30, the drive was spectacular, Jan is convinced she saw a Californian condor - it may have been because they are in this area, and it was "bloody big", (technical ornithological term).

Once out of the woods of the National park we drove into some classic Arizona desert scenery, huge rocky cliffs on one side of the arrow straight road, dry scrub land on the other. (Desert joke: "Doesn't that massive rock pillar look great?", "yes, it's a butte".)

We stopped at a roadside stop, at "Cliff Dwellers" and Jan tried to photograph some Hummingbirds, "they're bloody small", and then we moved on.

We crossed the Colorado River, and stopped once more, to watch the rafters on the water below, and to buy some jewellery from a Navaho Indian stall holder. 

After this the stress levels began to rise.... 

There were road works on the Route 89S, and like every thing else in America their roadworks are big, we were stopped for over 20 minutes, and then the speed was reduced for many miles.... Flagstaff for 1:30?

Numerous speed violations later we arrived at the Flagstaff City limits, (wasn't that a song by Tina Turner?). 15 minutes to go... we needed to fill up with petrol, (as required by the car hire deal), but the pump was unfamiliar and the attendant had to come and sort it, 10 minutes to go... We found a sign for the airport - 2 miles, 5 minutes to go... We got lost! 1:30... Finally we found the correct route, we got there! 1:35... 

But not to worry, Flagstaff airport is not the international transport hub we suspected it might be, think of Hucknall airfield on a busy day. It has just 6 commercial flights a day, and they all go to Phoenix. The distance between the car rental parking spaces and the flight check-in desk was about 50 yards! Panic over. 

Although we were flying to Santa Barbara we needed to change at Phoenix, the first flight was 25 minutes, (yes, 25 minutes! It takes longer than that to get into Nottingham on the tram!), and the connecting flight to California was just over an hour. Our 1 hour 40 minute flying had saved us 8 hours driving. 

Our seats were next to the rear gunner...

In Santa Barbara our hotel is a bit basic, the room is the smallest so far - smaller than yesterday's cabin! We dumped our bags and went down town, dinner was in a buzzing Mexican restaurant, the Blue moon beer came with a slice of orange!

Day 4: A walk in the woods...

So here we are in the Grand Canyon National Park, we are staying at the North Rim, site, which is much quieter than the more famous South Rim park. Of the 5 million visitors to the Park each year just 10% come this side, and it shows - much calmer and less commercial. The main lodge is perched on the Canyon side, with amazing views from the terraces and dining room - at breakfast we had a ring side seat of the whole vista.

All the cabins are set in a pine forest, huge ponderosa trees giving the place a real "back woods" atmosphere - last night I thought I saw "Big foot" lurking in the shadows out side our cabin, but it was Jan returning from the "Deli in the Pines"...

We were up really early today, (5:15am), so as to see the sun rise over the canyon. The atmosphere was really still and peaceful and the scenery was great, the overcast skies mean the sun-up wasn't so good but heh this is the Grand Canyon!

After a hearty breakfast we decided to explore one of the trails, we walked about 6 miles through the enormous pines and stopped at a Canyon viewing spot - we could have walked into the canyon itself, but to get the bottom was a 14 mile round trip, and don't forget half of that is steeply uphill!

There were mule rides advertised at the lodge but there was a weight restriction and a set of very public scales next to the booking desk... vanity got the better of us and we opted out! As we walked we frequently had to skip over mule s*** and p***, so we felt that we had partially experienced the "experience". 

As a nice piece of symmetry, we also watched the sunset, this time the skies were much clearer and the views were breathtaking.

We finished the evening with a talk from a Park Ranger on the early Colorado River explorers, mad pioneers who rode the rapids through the canyon, often killing themselves in the process. 

Day 3: Deep dark canyon - A natural wonder

We began the day by taking a taxi downtown to where we were to collect our hire car, this part of Vegas seems so much more interesting than the "strip" area, if ever we return we shall definitely check it out. Sorting the car was ridiculously straightforward, and by 9:20 we were "Grand Canyon" bound. Driving was initially a bit scary,the first road was 6 lane interstate 15, (yes six lanes!), automatic gearbox, "undertaking" as well as over taking, and relentless country and western on the radio... But it all comes together soon enough.

There was a misunderstanding at the car hire place, but it got sorted...

I saw a roadside bill board advertising steak meals for $16, I thought that seemed reasonable, Jan corrected me, it was 16 oz steaks, (at $4:99), even better!

En route - or should that be "En rowt", we came across a real frontier town called "Fredonia", (population: 4092), and the only shop/gas station/coffee bar was run by a real truculent "Red neck", he also sold guns and ammo, and advertised a comprehensive "butchery service" for anyone wanting their hunting spoils sorted, (elk skinned: $75).

We finally arrived at the Grand Canyon at 3:30, and wow... Beyond the visitors centre and guest lodges is the most incredible sight you can imagine... The scale of the canyon is breathtaking, and the colours and shapes of the different strata in the rocks are truly beautiful. A sight I shall never forget.

Just one of the views...

Our "lodge" is a quaint cabin, not dissimilar to a large garden shed from Wickes, cosy and very much in keeping with the pioneer theme. We are now sitting in the viewing gallery waiting for the sun set, happy daze!