Pacific Coast - Day 3 at Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach

before i start.. happy birthday toad. your obsession with muscles and working out is starting to scare me, please don't change too much before i get back. blk 75 ban mian tar when i get back ok???

Monday, January 1, 2007

Brand new year ahead of us. We woke up and checked out.. there were some pastries and coffee in the Days Inn office but they weren't good enough for pb so we went off to search for breakfast.

Our room was right above the office. It was really hard to find food on New Year's day, but the very wuhua gps [thanks to mark] with Tom Tom software! led us to Kitty's kitchen a few blocks away from our hotel. The owner [dunno if she is Kitty haha] was really friendly, it was another homely little diner's. We were her first customers of the YEAR! too bad she didn't offer us breakfast on the house.. lousy!

fried chicken steak


rye toast, bacon and sunny side up


The only attraction that I know of at Morro Bay, was the Morro Rock



Looks like some place 孙悟空 was trapped under. hehe. Wow the chinese input software is damn good.. it is refreshing my chinese.. heh

Huge waves! There were surfers out there already. Don't know how they can stand it, it is so cold!! See the 2 dots in the distance? they're surfers.. pb was so excited about them!

We felt kinda cheeky and decided to make a private seagull zoo for ourselves. What we did? We took leftover french toast from yday's Santa Cruz diner breakfast [good stuff ok], peeled it, and threw it out of our sunroof. Then we rapidly closed it.. So there were lots of crazy seagulls flying and hopping on our windscreen and hood! Haha! It was hilarious!

Actually, it is quite scary cos they are so furious when they peck at the food. But we were safe in our little pontiac vibe. I think if li ling was there she would totally freak out and faint or something. hehe.

I was initially quite concerned about getting caught, i mean, maybe it's illegal or something to feed them? Like, they lose their ability to fend for themselves or something haha but luckily we didn't get caught. This other guy in another truck was pretty amused by us too. Our windscreen was all greasy with butter after the whole episode. heehee.

waiting for more food

We drove along and well, the road doesn't go by the coast ALL the time, it actually moves inland for most of the time. We were getting bored when I remembered there was the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo which we could visit. It's like not one of the must sees, but luckily we hadn't overshot it and so we decided to pop by and check it out.

I wasn't sure what to expect, I just vaguely heard that the men's bathroom is rather unique.

Our ferrari.. heehee


men's bathroom.. that's a urinal, and a sensor flushes your pee via a waterfall!



the ladies was cute too

pink pink pink! Really tacky. Each of their rooms were also themed, which reminds me of those kinky themed hotel rooms in japan/taiwan which we see in junk emails hehe..

South we go, towards Pismo Beach!! Time for some ATV action!

Signed the indemnity forms, flashed his mastercard, listened to some quick instructions and we're ready to go!! We rode on the beach at 15mph [speed limit] til we reached the sand dunes. The only time I've seen anyone do this was in a photo of paris hilton and stavros like, way back.. So it's totally awesome that we got to try it out. It just felt kinda weird being on the beach fully clothed.. it would be even more cool if it was in summer and we could work on our tan at the same time.. ha..

me getting stuck cos I didn't dare to floor the pedal while going upslope! And at this stage, the more you step on the pedal, the more the wheel will sink into the sand.. Poor pb had to help me dig out the sand and move the vehicle forward! We later learnt that you just have to go backwards to get out of the sticky situation.. hurhur.

my heeero! *said in a whiny, bimbotic, damsel in distress tone*

It was a super fun 2 hours! I was initially scared to ride down slopes [they were steep!!] i thought it wld be like a roller coaster or something, but later on after trying, I realised that these aren't called all-terrain vehicles for nothing. They are damn cool, you can totally control the vehicle while going down the slopes, you can even stop in the middle if you wanted. See the silly flags at the rear of the vehicle? That's not just to look cheesy.. we realised that, it's cos you're often entirely hidden to oncoming vehicles when you are on one side of a slope. So the flags were really helpful for us to spot vehicles on the other side of the huge sand dunes!

No, didn't learn any donuts/wheelies. Heh heh.

We realised something was wrong when all the vehicles there were huge trucks.. we had to drive on the sand for some distance before reaching the rental place! This was taken as we drove back after all that riding. The instructor recommended us a place for seafood in Avila Beach [i want my dungeness crabs.. sob] and so we went to look for it..

Yup, we were there! on Pacific Coast Highway 1!!!!

We didn't have much time left cos we had a plane to catch at L.A. at 7pm. So we grabbed some mexican food instead, while pb stayed in the car to charge his pda. The spicy prawns were fantastic. And I was quite amused at the avocado.. I ate it, but wouldn't say I'm a fan of it. The rest of the time was spent driving, driving, driving.. We had to rush a little as the traffic was unpredictable, but luckily we made it in time!! So that was, the end of our PCH drive!

Pacific Coast - Day 2 thru Santa Cruz, Monterey, Big Sur and San Simeon

Sunday, December 31, 2006

The night before, we had gone back to Alamo to change a car.. well, our original plan was to change from our economy saturn ion, to a *convertible* for the ride to come. Heehee, totally 奢侈. That had better be the right words cos I don't recognise them at all. However, it never occurred to me that the place would be so freaking cold! Driving with the roof down would be totally ridiculous, I want my heater please thank you very much. So, we ended up changing to a supposedly mid-sized car [no economy left, since we didn't book it beforehand].

We also picked up our much needed luggage from the airport while exchanging cars.. Clean clothes feel damn good. ha.

So we left San Carlos in the morning and set off for a journey we really looked forward to.. the Pacific Coast Highway drive. It's a beautiful scenic drive along the coast (obviously) and I heard, has been used in many car commercials.

After an hour's drive, we reached: Santa Cruz

What better place to dine at Santa Cruz, than the Santa Cruz Diner? While pumping gas, we asked the attendant where we could have breakfast and he directed us here.. We had a hearty breakfast of french toast, bacon, sausage, egg, omelette and coffee, and the service was fantastic. There was a sign saying 'tourists are treated the same as locals' and we really felt at home. We even packed a chocolate crepe, and a grilled salmon salad to go for the trip ahead!

We reached the coast shortly after the breakfast. This is the Santa Cruz boardwalk! Looks like a really fun place to take those old school rides and eat lots of junk food while the waves come crashing in the distance. Too bad it was too early, and we didn't have the luxury of time to do so either. We were very much in awe of the big waves, little did we know that there was more to come.

On our way to Monterey, we saw this policeman putting flares on the road. At first I thought they were electric/those lightstick things, but they are really burning! Scary.. The route was totally closed, and we did see many police cars rushing to that area, though I didn't figure out what was happening..

super cheesy house.

Our pontiac vibe! really lucky that it came with a sunroof, the closest we can get to a convertible haha. It did come in very handy in photo taking.

crazy pple cycling in the cold!


bigger waves here.. I'm not gonna tell you where I am cos I really don't know. We just kinda stopped along the way as and when we liked.

a lady saw us stupidly peeping out of our sunroof and volunteered to take this photo for us! So sweet of her. Though it seems that her hands weren't too steady... Heehee. I like the positioning though, at least we are in the middle + there's the Pacific Ocean behind us.

We reached Monterey after about an hour, it's this little town, with a very good aquarium. Well, we obviously didn't have time to stop, so Monterey wasn't exactly fascinating for us. We drove a little more to this 17 mile drive thing.. Well basically it was just a road that they made us pay toll for, and named certain rocks along the way.

We were supposed to hike through the Point Lobos State Reserve but we were way behind time.. so we missed out on that. Haha, you must be wondering, what the hell are we doing.. no time for everything. Yeah, it was really dumb, cos we were planning to visit Hearst Castle which is half way down the stretch between San Francisco and Los Angeles. But it is closed on Jan 1 so we had to make it by today, and the last tour is at 3.30pm. Which means that we had to rush past everything from Santa Cruz to the Hearst Castle.. :(

Left: 17 mile drive

We reached Big Sur after a few more hours. Here we are at thePfeiffer Big Sur state park. There's a easy 1 hour round trip hike to the Pfeiffer falls which we took.. It felt really weird to be in a foresty place wearing a jacket! and feeling cold!

I was quite freaked out upon seeing this sign at the beginning of the hike.







I opened my salmon salad and enjoyed it in the presence of the Pfeiffer falls.

Coming up next.. more driving + stopping at pretty places.. Don't be fooled by the glaring sun, it was soo cold!

Had our banana chocolate crepe at a serene spot




Awesome.

Pretty as the sights were, sad to say, it got kinda mundane after a while. It was good that we travelled in the day, cos the roads were super windy [as in, crooked] and there were no lights around, only reflectors.. Also, many of the roads were mountainous.. Not exactly the safest place to drive in!

Kevin had told me about elephant seals along the way.. I had tried looking out for them but never saw them, and after a while, I fell asleep.. Suddenly pb said hey it's here! I squinted in the distance and saw lots of people crowding in an area looking at rocks. Huh? We followed them and parked in the already full parking area and walked over.. and suddenly one of the rocks flipped over.

Heh heh they look kinda dead but they're just lazy lazy lazy. Just like some people who like to lie around on the living room floor in front of the tv, with their blubber tummy hanging out... teehee.

korkor!! sorry townbear, they really really remind me of you!

We finally reached Hearst Castle. Like, finally. I was really worried that we wouldn't be able to make it in time, but we did. Well, basically Hearst was some superbly rich publisher, and he had this superbly 豪华 castle. Of course, it's not called a castle for nothing right? So when he passed away, he donated it to the state of California for silly tourists like us to pay to go check it out.

It sits on top of a freaking hill and we had to take a bus up to reach it. On the hill are different species such as zebras, cows and I can't remember which graze freely there. He used to have a freaking zoo in the compound.. Le sigh.

I was pretty amused to see this gam1 [mandarin orange?] tree!



Clockwise: Neptune pool, gold painted window of a guest house, and the ceiling in one of the rooms


The tapestries on the wall are literally priceless. If I'm not wrong, they are so valuable that experts couldn't place a price on them.


And.. the indoor pool. Kinda scary to swim here huh, so dark.

Well, pb and me were never art fanatics. We didn't enjoy the Paul Getty museum, and we weren't terribly excited about this castle either. It was pretty cool I guess, but we were also way too cold most of the time to really enjoy the place. So we were quite relieved when it ended. Also cos that meant we could get back into the warm bus. Hahaha. Well next time cannot listen to Kevin anymore. He was the one who said it's a must see.. Now I realised that he enjoyed the Paul Getty museum as well.. Boo. Then again, if I didn't see it, I would have regretted it so it's still good that we made the trip down.

After which, we drove down to our Days Inn in Morro Bay and slept our tired selves once we could. My new year's eve was as off as my christmas eve.. spent sleeping away in a foreign place.