Journey to CA :: Portion 2

And of course, we awoke, and it was really beautiful. We were pretty enamored of the above tree that rotted out, it really has graceful lines and beautiful texture. So we ate some grub and got in the car and away we go! In the first little town we rolled through, there was an organic coffee/ espresso stand... so we had to stop. There, on the side of the road in the morning sun we had coffee. It was one of those moments where you take stock in your life and what a cool planet you have ended up on (at-least I do!).

After following 101 a little further we decided to opt for highway 1. It is supposed to take longer, but hey, why not? Well... it is one of those roads where you can go no faster than 25mph because the turns and inclines are so severe. (Oh and there were random bicycles!) But it was worth it, no traffic and spectacular, I mean spectacular scenery. After wandering up some mountains we finally emerged upon the coast again, and it was spectacular. The very northern part of CA is not as populated and the vistas benefit from that. We finally stopped in a small Victorian town/artist community. Here we spent some time in galleries and poked around a bit, it was an interesting place. Here are some pics...



I really liked the "church steeple"

From here the road twisted down and through Carmel and Big Sur, where we traced the route of Christine's upcoming marathon. This area is really different in that it feels like it is on a different scale, one where you the human are small!! I am not sure that words or images can convey how striking it is, even if 1/2 the road gives way and slides 500 feet down to the ocean.



We even saw a peacock wandering around.

My favorite image was that of road construction along the way. This tunnel that they created really reminded me http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifof Jean Claude and Christo.

At this point it occurs to me that I neglected to inform you that this is all south of San Francisco, which is about the point where we stopped and slept, so what if my mind is jumping back and forth between two days! Here is the illustrious $5 bridge.


The night that we spent south of San Fran I encountered one of the coolest things ever... BANANA SLUGS. They were everywhere and I spent 2 cups of coffee worth of time hanging with them. They are so amazing.


At this point, the coast line began to flatten out and we eventually ended up in Santa Barbara. All in all it took 4 days of driving. In Santa Barbara, we discovered that all of the beach campsites were full, so we had to drive up into the mountains, not an easy task with and overloaded not so powerful car.

The next day began the trial though, finding a place to live. Now, we have previously shown up in, Anchorage and Seattle and found a good place to live in one day. Santa Barbara, is one of the biggest challenges that I have encountered yet. Christine and I spent the morning driving around and looking for posted vacancies and then went to cafe and called some places and looked on Craigs List, the University listing and the newspaper. It was not looking good. Finally I began to wonder if anything (well anything under $1500/studio that didn't require a car to drive a 1/2 hour) was going to turn up. Christine began to get very concerned. I called the student housing office to see if there was anything that I had overlooked and spent a good deal of time on the phone learning that I was on page 12 of the waitlist and that nothing was likely to happen for a year. Then it happened. The guyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif that I had spoke with on the phone emailed me and wanted me to update my status, to which I immediatley replied that yes I was still interested and would take anything that I could get my hands on. He emailed me back that something had just open and was I interested? Well I emailed back, then phoned and now I am renting a university family housing 2 bedroom with everything included for under a thousand!!!! Oh and it is about as close as you can get to the university and still be in the good part of town. Needless to say we were thrilled! With that taken care of, we decided to put our stuff in storage and head down to San Diego to pick up stuff at TJ's place and then to Arizona to spend a little time with Jim and Char Becker and take them up on the offer to use their vacation home. Oh yeah, we can't move in until the 14th! Here is the new place.

San Diego was a great and now we are down in Arizona getting back to work on the whole preparation for tests bit.

Here are a few final CA images.