August 9th - Day 58
When we were trying to finalize the last leg of our trip, we were debating between driving north through the Sierras and hitting up Yosemite and Tahoe, or driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. The Pacific Coast Highway won out as it is one of the classic road trip drives in the country and that we are more likely to go to Yosemite and Tahoe on a different trip. After driving the stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that we did today, several family members are wishing that we would have chose the Sierras instead.
A few highlights from the day:
Shortly after leaving our campground, we stopped at Trader Joe’s in Santa Maria. This was the first time that we’ve stopped at Trader Joe’s on the entire trip and the whole family was excited to go in. Obadiah and Ilena were thrilled to push the small carts to collect our groceries and Aubrey and Elias tackled the Trader Joe’s scavenger hunt. I moped through the store as I had just filled up the RV gas tank at $6.00/gallon and was still in recovery mode.
The coastline between San Luis Obisbo and Monterery may be one of the most scenic drives that we have done. The Pacific Coast Highway though is far from straight (or wide). It was so crooked that even me as the driver was on the edge of sick. There were many corners that required us to slow down to 15 mph and there was also no shoulder on the road. Fortunately, we were on the inside of the road, so Becca only felt like we were going to scrape the side of a cliff with the RV vs feeling like we were going to fall of the edge of the cliff into the ocean.
We are camping tonight on the Monterery Bay, just south of Santa Cruz. After dinner tonight, Becca and I were able to walk down to the beach and watch the sunset. There is certainly something about watching the sunset over the Pacific that can’t be experienced elsewhere in this country.
A few pictures from the day:
