Cool last night, we needed the heat but it got up to 92 today. Everybody is talking about the "heat wave" and how it should break by Sun. and go down to the 70's. Nobody has air conditioning here and they're not used to it, but it's not humid and doesn't even feel that hot to us.
Started with the water today and ended with wine.
Drove up Route 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway) and stopped in a couple of little seaside villages to look at the views. Stopped in Harmony, Cambria and Moonstone, they all had cuted little cottages with gorgeous flower gardens. Stopped at San Simeon State Park and saw a lot of sea otters feeding on the kelp beds. Supposedly there's humpback whales from March to May there too but you need better eyes than we have to spot them. We tried with binoculars but no luck. One of those pesky squirrels ran over my foot when I wasn't looking, scared the you-know-what out of me. And then he looks at me like "What are you doing in my way?"
Drove up to Hearst Castle and that's about where the road stops. The highway collapsed from the tsunami and they still haven't fixed it. That made up our minds about whether or not we're gonna drive all the way up to San Francisco on it. Guess we go with plan B, route 101.
Backtracked a few miles and took route 46 east to Paso Robles, what a road. Beautiful hills covered with every shade of green you can imagine and then some. Breathtaking! And the smell! They told us it's potato vines and it smells like jasmine and honeysuckle and lilac and roses and hay-all mixed together. I wish I could capture that smell. Horse and cattle ranches all over and then we got into wine country. There are over 300 wine tasting places in Paso Robles and that doesn't include the invitation only ones. Miles and miles of vineyards. We stopped at a few and tasted some wines that were very different from what we're used to. Then we drove into town and there were more tasting rooms. The more I tasted the more I liked wine. Good thing Harry was driving.
Drove back a different way through more green hills and avocado farms this time. This is the way we're going north tomorrow.
Came back to camp and I walked across the street to the beach again, its' still enchanting. And the rock looks different at different times of the day, sometimes you can see the seagull nests and sometimes you can see greenery on it and sometimes it looks like just stone.
As much as I like it here, we're ready to move on tomorrow. We're gonna try to get to San Francisco. I'd like to stop at Monterey and Pebble Beach and the 17 mile drive, but I may have to forgo it, but that's OK, San Francisco looks like tons of fun!