Today, we headed North - final destination: Mountain View. After a brief taste of the tail end of Los Angeles rush hour, we headed towards Santa Barbara on Route 101N. In Santa Barbara, we drove to State Street/The Promenade, parked the car, and walked out to the end of Stearn's Pier. Sunning in a dinghy tied to a mooring was a cute little harbor seal. Then we headed back into town, on foot, and had lunch at Be-Bop Burger. After a bit of looking around, we got onto Route 1N and struck out for San Luis Obispo. We decided to drive straight through that town, and past the Hearst Castle, to a small seaside community called Morro Bay. Morro Bay has a great big rock structure in the center of the bay and is a nifty little fishing village. We walked around a bit and paid two dollars for admission to a tiny aquarium that was behind a souvenier shop. One room of the aquarium houses sea lions and harbor seals, which you can feed for 50� per small bag of chum. Actually, it was quite an up-close experience. The other room housed tank with various plants and animals from the bay. All of the specimins were rescued and nursed back to health by the aquarium staff. After the brief stop in Morro Bay, we continued up the Pacific Coast Highway and into what makes this road infamous. For quite a while, the road is carved into cliffs, with switchbacks and curves, and beautiful scenic vistas. Every once in a while, you come upon a small fishing village tucked into a canyon, or a group of houses perched on the cliffs. One point to note: be sure you have plenty of gas in the tank before you venture into this part of the highway. We were forced to stop about 15-miles short of carmel to get some fuel in Big Sur, and it was nearly 75� more expensive here than where you would have a choice of vendors. The drive, nonetheless, was quite fun and spectacular. Popping out in Carmel-By-The-Sea, we drove through the upscale town of Carmel and to the entrance of "17-Mile Drive", which takes you around Pebble Beach. It was $8.00 for admission at the ranger station, and we got a map outlining the points of interest. On this drive, we stopped at scenic overlooks and pebble beaches, drove through ridiculously-expensive neighborhoods with equally ridiculously-expensive mansions, saw some ridiculously-expensive antique cars and ridiculously-expensive golf courses, and some cute harbor seals. From there, it was on to Route 68N, through Pacific Grove (which is right on the coast, and not quite as ridiculous, but very, very nice), where we caught the sun setting, and into Monterey. Here, we simply drove along the coast, past the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and through Cannery Row (of Steinbeck fame). A connecting highway through Castroville got us back onto Route 101N and about an hour later, we were in Mountain View, at Noga's brother's house.
