Today we went from greens you eat to greens you play on.
I thought I'd be disappointed that we couldn't go north on Route 1 because the road was closed but soon after we got on Route 101 (or, as they call it here, THE 101) things started to look up. We start driving through farm after farm after farm, pimentos, avocados, lettuce, broccoli, tomotoes, beans, spinach, artichokes! We're in Salinas, which is the "Salad Bowl of the World". There's pickers everywhere and fields upon fields being plowed for spring planting. Have you even seen bright green iceberg lettuce planted next to blue-green broccoli planted next to deep purple arugula? It's sensory overload here. The smells are wonderful, too! The earthy, healthy smell of rich dirt and clean air. We're in a valley with mountains all around us and I swear I can see the Jolly Green Giant himself when, all of a sudden there he is on the side of a building. We're in Salinas, where the big veggie packers are, Dole, Green Giant, DelMonte, Taylor Farms. On some farms they have huge, larger than life cut outs of people farming and even a few with dogs. They keep you occupied as you drive. One of these towns is actually called Greenfield. We also drove through Castroville, "The Artichoke Center of the World"-WOW!
The other green we saw were golf greens. We took a side trip to Pebble Beach and Monterey. We weren't sure we could maneuver the RV through 17-Mile Drive, but I'm now convinced Harry can maneuver that thing anywhere. I did have to promise no more side trips like that, though. It was pretty harrowing, but the sights were magnificent. It's 17 miles of a road that winds through beautiful estates, a lot of golf courses and my favorite, the Pacific Ocean. There's stops along the way where you can pull in (we had lunch at one of them) and there's a few mile stretch where they fenced the ocean off because the seals are pupping. There's a rock with hundreds of birds on it and the ocean itself is that beautiful bright blue/green and the waves are grand. I loved it here. I can't see how you could play golf across the street form this and pay attention to the ball. There was even a little deer on the side of the road right in front of the golf course and another along the drive itself. Beautiful homes here too.
On the way back up north again we saw more farms, this time cherries, apricots, garlic, olives, very verdant, very idyllic, very peaceful. But of course we're running later than we expected now because of Pebble Beach and of course it's Friday afternoon and of course we hit traffic 20 miles south of Oakland and we have that traffic all the way up to Petaluma where our campground is.
Very nice here, we're starting to see some redwoods and a lot of cedar trees, too. Everybody stopped complaining about the heat wave and now they're complaining about how cold it is. It was warmer when we left this morning but in Pebble Beach it was only 53 and it was 52 when we got here tonight. Supposed to stay cold for a few days (in the 60's) and then get warmer again. We're here for a few days, going into San Francisco, probably Sausalito and let's not forget we're in the Napa/Sonoma Valley-CAN YOU SAY VINEYARDS!