Adventures with Liz

Cruisin' Down the 101 and Other Tales

Road trip Days 9 & 10: California Coast and San Francisco, CA to Salt Lake City, UT.

So... I did it. I realized my 6 year old dream. Hurray!

Kym and I left early yesterday morning and jumped on the 101 where it begins in San Diego. The highway runs through several small coastal towns, each a little different, but all with that same beachy feel. We had to get on interstate 5 for a little while, which was less than exciting, but we joined back up with the 101 in LA, my original hometown. I guess I see why we moved... it's basically dirty, traffic-ridden, fairly unimpressive city. Hollywood is the same way. I did get to see the big Hollywood sign up on the hill, but only for a few brief seconds. Driving the 101 in this area was like driving through a Tom Petty song: Reseda, Mulholland, Ventura Blvd. The magic of "Free Fallin' " quickly wore off, however, when we hit standstill traffic. Apparently it was necessary to close a whole section of the freeway. So we got off and bravely tried to navigate the detour. The directions weren't too difficult, but traffic kept moving more and more slowly. When we finally made it to the next freeway entrance, we had to turn around, because the entrance was blocked off by Caution tape and surrounded by the LA bomb squad. Only in LA.

Anyway, we finally made it back to the 101, out of the city, and back towards the coast. Google Maps, however, decided the coast wasn't a sufficient route, and so sent us off onto a smaller highway that wound us into the mountains. The drive was pretty and the view breathtaking, but I soon realized that I was getting low on gas and civilization was nowhere in sight. The first true test of the new vehicle! After several harrowing, nerve wracking miles of wondering whether or not we might be stuck forever in the mountains, we rolled into an incredibly tiny town and refilled the tank.

Good to go again, we wound our way back to the 101, which we followed through golden hills covered in cows and vineyards (though not generally at the same time...). The 101 meets California Highway 1 back out by the coast. On our way up CA-1, we stopped to see an elephant seal colony. Finally, we started the uphill decent into the mountains on the coast. The drive from there was amazing. Words and pictures can't do it justice. There's really now way to accurately describe what it's like winding your way around hairpin turns on a road carved into the mountain side, with nothing but solid rock on one side and ocean on the other. Kym and I stopped at several "Vistas," as the California highway calls them, to take pictures. The drive was everything I hoped it would be. The sun was out, the weather was warm, and the scenery was breathtaking (yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that lately, I know).

Once out of the mountains, we completed our drive back on the 101 to San Francisco, where we ate dinner at Pier 39 (NOT Pier 19... there's nothing there... don't go there... it's scary!) and saw Fisherman's Wharf. We got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge (and then through a tunnel!) on our way to our lodgings for the night.

This morning I took Kym to the Sacramento airport, and then started my long journey back east. Almost 700 miles on I-80. Gross. The first part was super exciting. I-80 goes into the mountains in northeast California. But these aren't gently sloping mountains like on the California coast, or low, crumbly hills like in the Mojave, or graceful peaks like in New Mexico. No. These are Mountains of Death. My poor car whined in protest at the quickly increasing elevation. I ended up at the top of the mountain unable to see anything except fog and the tips of formidable pine trees on the sides of the mountain sharply sloping away. It started pouring rain, and the road curved almost as sharply as CA-1. I survived, though, and made it into Nevada, which is quite lovely, and then into Utah. I'm in Salt Lake City tonight. Hopefully I will get to see the Temple tomorrow, and then head off to see Beth!

posted by Liz @ 12:26 AM