USA Part Two
Wednesday the 4th our hosts took the day off and we went down to San Diego for the day. We spent the morning wandering around the La Jolla district (pronounced La Hoya for those of you who’s Spanish pronunciation is as bad as mine)
However the undoubted highlight of our trip to San Diego was going to watch a ball game at Petco Park between The San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies. Baseball was until now somewhat lost on me but I am now a HUGE fan…
Thursday 5th, we picked up our rental car that the Americans call a compact. Well our car is a 4 door V6, Pontiac Grand AM. Needless to say we are pretty stoked!
After a few wrong turns here and there we managed to negotiate our way out of LA’s labyrinth of free ways and finally started North on highway 1. After stopping for lunch on the beach in Malibu we pressed on towards Santa Barbara. We camped for the night just South of SB in a small town called Carpinteria. A quaint seaside town not unlike many along the Garden Route in SA. After setting up camp we wandered around town looking at a few shops. The most notable being a candy shop that sold hundreds of different types of candy, all hand made on the premises. Also this fine establishment whose name unfortunately escapes me, holds the distinction of being the official mint supplier of the 50th presidential inauguration.
We asked around town if there were any good restaurants and were told unanimously that the Palms was our best bet. The big deal at the Palms was that you got to cook your own steak, chicken or fish on a big flame grill. Despite being somewhat skeptical of going to a restaurant that made you cook your own food we went anyway. It turned out to be a very enjoyable experience. We had to wait for a table for an hour so we killed it having a beer at the bar while watching the baseball on TV (did I tell you I am a HUGE fan) The food was fantastic and there was LOTS of it – which rates high in my book. The steak was even cooked to perfection – if I may say so myself.
The next day we headed up the Coast hoping to camp near Big Sur. However being a weekend – all the campsites were full. Eventually after nearly running out of petrol in the middle of nowhere we were told there was a campsite 11 Miles East of where we were. After 11 vertical miles – into the mountains, we came to a dusty, deserted campsite.
Well, it wasn’t completely deserted, it was home to a rather large colony of flies, thinking that we would rather now spend the night with the flies in the middle of nowhere, with only 4 slices of bread between us we decided to freewheel back down the 11 miles and try our luck at the other campsites on the coast.
Despite a Campground Full sign outside we pulled into Kirk Creek campground. Which is where we met Gabe, the camp manager – Real life hippie. He kindly let us camp next to his caravan for the night and told us that a campsite would be free the next day. After getting some food from a near by shop we went down to the beach to watch the sunset, which Gabe had assured us would be like so totally righteous. He wasn’t wrong.
Keep tuned. More to come soon.