Coastal California – TRAVEL WORDS

Postcards from Around the World

Just west of downtown San Diego and on the other side of the water from the Coronado Naval Air Station sits the Point Loma Peninsula, known for its tide pools, sandstone cliffs, and the historic Cabrillo National Monument which commemorates the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542.

There are great views across to the harbour and San Diego region (Point Loma Naval Base in the foreground and the Naval Air Station on Coronado on the right).

This is the new Point Loma Lighthouse in San Diego, California. It was in service from 1891-1997. The lens was removed and is now stored on site at the old Point Loma Lighthouse.

There are several hiking trails through the coastal sage scrub forest especially beautiful in spring with wildflowers. There are also tidal pools to explore which get very busy during the summer months.

Scrubland

India Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepsis indica)

A little south of the lighthouse is the Whale Overlook. This vantage point offers pleasant views of the Pacific Ocean and the New Point Loma Lighthouse. Whales are often seen from here in January and February.

A helicopter leaving North Island Naval Air Station against the impressive curved bridge to Coronado. The views from Cabrillo National Monument are impressive.

A short walk leads to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. This picturesque structure is restored to its 1880s appearance and presents life as it was for the lightkeepers and their families. In the adjacent Assistant Keeper’s Quarters, interactive exhibits tell the story of the Lighthouses of Point Loma and, in a nearby historic military building, the exhibit “They Stood the Watch” presents the history of Fort Rosecrans.

This is the old Point Loma Lighthouse. It was in service 1855-1891.

The statue viewing area is down a short walking path just off the traffic circle in front of the Visitor Centre.

Cabrillo led the first European expedition to set foot on what would become the west coast of the United States, and the first to chart the coast of California. Cabrillo departed from the port of Navidad, Mexico on June 27, 1542. Three months later he arrived at “a very good enclosed port,” which is known today as San Diego Bay. He later died during the expedition though his crew made it as far as Oregon before harsh winter storms forced them back to Mexico.

We had an America the Beautiful pass which covered our vehicle entrance as we were planning on doing the Canyons Circle after leaving the city.

Postcards from Around the World

La Jolla Coastal Walk

La Jolla (Pronounced luh hoy uh) is a smart seaside area, known for its rugged coastline and tidal pools as well as waterfront restaurants and posh boutiques in La Jolla Village. So whilst on a visit to San Diego, back in early March 2010, I decided to go and see it for myself. Easy to reach from the Old Town terminus on the number 30 bus.

Pacific Seahorses are found in the ocean in La Jolla

Street art

Walking from the bus stop on Silverado Street I made my way to the shoreline at Cuvier Park, stopping first for brunch at the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego. From there I simply followed the coastline and promenade along to Goldfish Point – about a mile – before heading back to the bus stop.

Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church – Girard Avenue

The Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

There seem to be many churches in La Jolla, but all rather beautiful, from the outside anyway. I didn’t go into any of them.

St James by the Sea Episcopal Church – Prospect Street

From Cuvier Park you get the most wonderful views north

View north towards the Lifeguard Tower at Children’s Pool

The ice plants were obviously a very tempting snack for these Californian Ground Squirrels.

Signpost

Sea Cave

Limonium or Sea Lavender

Palms waving in the wind

Ground Squirrel

Unusual sculpture at the rear of La Jolla’s Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego called Pleasure Point, by artist Nancy Rubins. It’s made of rowboats, canoes, jet skies, kayaks, surfboards

Seals basking on the sand at Children’s Pool

The facility was created in 1931 by benefactor Ellen Browning Scripps as a safe spot for children to swim, but the seals decided that it was also a lovely sunny beach for them to relax on and give birth to their pups. A rope now keeps people from disturbing the protected marine mammals.

Ellen Browning Scripps Park contains many picnic areas and places to relax on the grass.

This is La Valencia Hotel otherwise known as ‘The Pink Lady’ which dates back to the 1920s

One of the gazebo structures along the sculptured sandstone cliffs

High on a craggy bluff overlooking the churning surf in La Jolla stands this weathered sea-green box..

To discover what this lifeguard icon is all about click here.

At Point La Jolla you will find the Sea lion and his harem

Where people get a little too close to nature.

Brown Pelicans

I’m watching you

La Jolla Cove is where many people gather to snorkel and swim and kayak and close by you will find pelicans and cormorants on the rocky outcrops.

My walk along the coast ended at Goldfish Point and Sunny Jim’s Sea Cave.

This Cave is accessed through the Cave Store. You walk down a tunnel with 145 steps to a small cave looking out into the ocean.

If you do have the fortune to visit San Diego I really would recommend popping over to La Jolla for a few hours, more if you fancy a swim.

Flashback Friday #21

Road Trip: USA California – San Fran to Carmel

On a visit to California, a few years ago, we had to travel to San Diego from San Francisco and decided that it might be fun to drive down the coast using the PCH rather than fly between the two cities. So from that decision a little road trip was born.

This is the first section between San Francisco and the lovely town of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Distance: 133 miles via Halfmoon Bay, Santa Cruz
Time: 3 hours without stopping

The PCH (Pacific Highway) is one of those iconic drives that should be done in a pink Cadillac convertible with the top down making the most of the azure blue skies and brilliant Californian sunshine with plenty of Beach Boys and Mamas and Papas CDs on board. In reality this was February and an open top car was not an option. We ended up with a Chevvy, but a poor imitation of the Chrysler PT Cruiser with black tinted windows; the skies were gun-metal grey. Not the ideal start, but hey it felt good to be on the road.

We began our journey in San Francisco and immediately headed southwest on to the Cabrillo Highway at Pacifica to follow it south to Monterey and Carmel – our first stop. This is not a long section, but it can take a long time, as there are plenty of scenic viewpoints to stop off at on your way down the coast and in the summer there are several roadside food stalls to entice you.

The section between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay in San Mateo County is prone to periodic landslides and road closures and one stretch is known as the Devil’s Slide*. This particular stretch of road reminded me of Chapman’s Peak Drive in the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, as it hugs a similar steep promontory with equally stunning vistas. We stopped at Half Moon Bay to admire the surfers and the beautiful beach until the rain sent us scudding back to the car.

*(This stretch of the Cabrillo Highway has since been replaced by a road tunnel).

Don’t forget to stop at the family run Duartes Tavern in Pescadero which is a little further south and only 2 miles off the state road; it is still run by the 4th generation of Duartes and home to the worlds most divine Olallieberry Pie, world-famous Cream of Artichoke Soup, and Crab Cioppino. We, on the other hand have had a full breakfast there and no complaints. In this small town you can also find interesting craft shops, artichoke bread and a goat dairy. If you have the time a stroll along the Pescadero State Beach back at the junction with Highway One may bring you into contact with harbour seals among the sand dunes. Continue reading Flashback Friday #21

Road Trip: USA California – The Road to Hell and Beyond

This is the final section between Santa Barbara and San Diego broken up with an overnight stay on the Queen Mary ship in Long Beach.

Distance: 221 miles
Time: 4 hours 20 minutes without stopping

Next day we set off for our final stop in Long Beach about 100 miles south. I was not looking forward to the final stretch of the journey – the free for all freeways of Los Angeles are notorious and to say I was nervous of driving there is no exaggeration. PCH merges with US Route 101 at this point for the next 54 miles and the traffic was intense.

Driving along the ‘Screaming Eagles Highway’ and then ‘Ventura Freeway’ we hugged the coast with great views of the ocean to the right and the Ventura Hills to the left with the lyrics of America’s “Ventura Highway” buzzing around our brains. Just after Ventura is Oxnard where the 101 and PCH part company again and passing a huge naval base we were back on the coast. Seeing islands close to the mainland we subsequently found out about the Channel Islands Park that lies in the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Monica Basin – the park encompasses five of the eight California Channel Islands (Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara). You can get there by boat from Oxnard harbour and spend time hiking, kayaking, camping, photography, painting, bird-watching and snorkelling as well as looking for wildlife. I had never heard of these islands before this trip, but they look more than worthy of a visit if you are in the area.

Two sunny hours later and we reached Santa Monica on the outskirts of Los Angeles where the traffic was heavy on a late Sunday morning and somehow we missed the turnoff for the PCH which would have taken us through Santa Monica to Venice Beach and Redondo Beach (and also under the runways at LA International Airport), instead we found ourselves on the Santa Monica Freeway and the stuff of nightmares – 12 lane freeways with cars overtaking from the left and the right.

Fortunately we managed to weave our way through the spaghetti onto Interstate 405 (the San Diego freeway) and then Interstate 710 (Long Beach freeway) to our destination in Long Beach harbour where the Queen Mary is berthed.

This lovely grand ocean liner with its memories of old Atlantic crossings is a timeless art-deco masterpiece and a wonderful place for an overnight stay in staterooms with original wood panelling and artwork (and plumbing) and half the price of the motel in Santa Barbara!

The following day we reluctantly said goodbye to the Queen Mary thinking we really must try a cruise some time and carried on our journey southwards. Locating the PCH we skirted across the north of Long Beach before plunging south to the coast again. I heaved a sigh of relief. Much as I love driving I no longer enjoy big towns and cities and LA is one huge mother of a city!

We abandoned the car at Huntington Beach, a pretty surfer town just south of LA, to meet up with a friend for breakfast. I had a half stack of pancakes with maple syrup – the first time I had tried the pancake option and I can only say how glad I was not to have ordered a full stack! Coffee was plentiful and the aroma of crisp bacon filled the air.
The name of this café? Sugar Shack on Main Street. Owned by the same family since the 1967 it is a place where you can dine with surfers coming back from “catching the waves”. Go there if you can for mammoth portions of the best breakfasts in California along with interesting surfing posters and surf boards in 1960s splendour and old family memorabilia.

After a brief walk around the pier and promenade in the much warmer (though still cloudy) SoCal climate to try to burn off some of those calories we continued along the coast to Capistrano beach near Dana Point in Orange County where the PCH ends becoming Interstate 5, the San Diego freeway. Shortly after lunchtime we drifted into the car rental place in downtown San Diego with only fumes left in the tank.

Our journey ended with a sigh, ‘Surfin’ USA’ rattling around our heads and a reluctance to return to normality.

This journey can be done in a couple of days, but if you aren’t in a rush I recommend taking your time. The Pacific Coast Highway is an excuse for a long, lazy trip in the sunshine and if you drive from north to south as we did, you are all but in the ocean for most of the time – though choosing a less inclement time of the year would be an improvement.

NB: Also check the route before setting off as there can often be road closures along the coastal roads from landslips.

Road Trip: USA California – The American Riviera

This is the third section between San Simeon and Santa Barbara

Distance: 151 miles
Time: 2 hours 48 minutes without stopping

A new day dawned with no rain, the sun was shining and there was a soft wind and all was good. We almost felt like abandoning our drive south and turn around to do the Big Sur again! But we had to be in San Diego in two days time so south it was. We set off without breakfast as we planned on stopping in Cambria a small town further south to try and find these Olallieberry* pies we kept hearing about.

We stopped off briefly at Moonstone Beach (San Simeon State Beach Park) to watch what looked like California Condors swirling high above us, before slipping off the Cabrillo Highway into Main Street Cambria where we found a small bakery and had our olallieberry* pies and coffees sitting on an outside terrace in the sunshine people watching. What could be better?

*(Olallieberries are a cross between a loganberry and a youngberry, which themselves are hybrids of raspberry, blackberry and dewberry). Indeed. Trying working that one out!

Continuing south in the sunshine our spirits lifted. The coastal route was lovely and the views great, though the landscape is not as impressive as the Big Sur. A large rock loomed in the ocean to our right which turned out to be Morro Rock a volcanic plug attached to the shore by a causeway making it a ‘tied’ island.

The rock was named “El Morro” (Spanish for crown-shaped hill) by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and is the last of a line of long-extinct volcanoes from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay, known as the nine sisters.

Whilst there it began to rain heavily again so our walk around the base of this huge rock was cut short. Not many miles further on lies San Luis Obispo, the end of the scenic central coast road and where I had aimed to stop off at the mission, but completely missed any signed directions to it and ended up in the middle of a rather lovely looking, if somewhat damp, town.

The rain was now falling heavily again, so much so that on reaching the three lane freeway 101 the wipers couldn’t keep up with the torrential rain and I was concerned that we’d rear end someone! The road here skirts past Shell beach and is virtually in the ocean, which is where I thought we might end up. Miraculously as we parted from the 101 back onto PCH at Pismo Beach, the deluge stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Here the road wanders through Guadalupe and Lompoc before joining the 101 again into Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara is known as the ‘American Riviera’. Lush, sun drenched and nestled in the gently rolling hills above the Pacific Ocean, Santa Barbara is known for its Moorish architecture, colourful history and beauty. In one direction lie the Santa Ynez Mountains and in the other the Pacific Ocean, barely five minutes from downtown. It is a very popular place with holidaying Americans with its permanent summer and consequently is not a cheap place to stay. We found a vacancy at the Inn by the Harbor, a motel about three blocks from the palm-lined beach. The motel was clean and basic, but not very attractive and being on the ground floor it didn’t feel very secure either, though far away from the notorious train station area to walk safely to the marina.

First we visited the Santa Barbara Mission, which is the 10th mission and founded in 1786 although the current building was rebuilt in 1925 after an earthquake destroyed the church. The mission with its twin bell towers and Doric façade is located on a hilltop overlooking the city and providing a spectacular view of the ocean.

Unfortunately the missionaries who brought religion and trousers to the local Chumash Indians also brought influenza and smallpox that killed the 4,000 Indians who are buried in the mission cemetery.

Later after a stroll along the Shoreline Park and Ledbetter Beach accompanied by a pretty sunset we headed for Chuck’s Waterfront Grill on the marina where we had one of the most delicious steaks we have ever had in California along with a couple of respectable Mai Tai cocktails.