Monday, May 2nd, Los Angeles to San Diego

Greetings!

It's been three days since my last post, and we've had lots of fun since then.  On Saturday morning, we discovered that the coast of Big Sur was closed, partly due to the Big Sur International Marathon being run (It's the same one we drove through many years ago, Patricia) south of Carmel, and mostly due to landslides on the coast near Alder Creek and Rocky Creek (click on: Big Sur Blockage).  Traffic headed south is routed from Hwy 1 to Hwy 101 as far south as Paso Robles and Hwy 46.  We took the route and made it all the way to San Simeon and the Hearst Castle by 1:30pm.  We boarded the 2pm tour, and spent the next two hours on the mountain.  Kitty had never been there, and I thoroughly enjoyed introducing her to this prized State Park property.  As she noted, her view of WRH and Miriam Davies came from "Citizen Kane,"and both seem much more interesting characters as a result of the tour.  And who knew about the architect, Julia Morgan?  Initially intending to just check out the Visitor Center, I left my camera in the car several hundred yards from it.  Racing to the 2 pm tour, I chose to visit the castle without it.  You'll just have to take my word that it's worth seeing.

We arrived at the Pismo Beach Sands RV Park after their registration office had closed.  Thankfully, they left a note about where we should park, and all the instructions we needed to file registration information in the night deposit box.  With no wifi, we read, watched tv, and talked until bedtime.

Sunday morning, we slept until 10 am.  Hitching up the trailer, we drove slowly down the coast to northern Los Angeles.  We visited Solvang, had lunch at Carpenteria State Beach at a really great local restaurant a block from the beach.  Kitty had a huge taco salad, I had shrimp and chips, and we stopped afterward at a Vons Market to re-stock some of our food supplies.

We arrived at Kitty's son Austin's house in northern Los Angeles around 6 pm.  We had called ahead, and had planned to park in front of his house on a dead end street for the night.  While the space was there since the neighboring house was vacant, the street was really narrow.  It appeared impossible to turn around, especially since there were cars parked all around us.

Once we relaxed, with the encouragement (and great planning and logistical support from Austin), and after contacting and coordinating the movement of neighborhood cars, we got it facing the opposite direction on the other side of the street only partially blocking the driveway of some very nice neighbors.  The three of us then walked to a restaurant (Milli's) about a half mile away, where we learned of Osama bin Laden's death (a phone call from Morena).  We watched a bit of it on the restaurant's tv, and then ordered huge salads and excellent Estancia Pinto Noir.

Returning to the house, we talked for an hour, and then turned in.  We hooked up the Airstream's electricity to Austin's house, and read for a little while.  This morning, we headed south, meandering through the south coast's beachside cities.  Kitty and I shared stories of our lives in them as 1960s teenagers.  We pulled into Campland on the Bay RV Park a few hours ago, disconnected the Airstream, and have spent the last couple of hours scoping out the park and the resources for us here.  Kitty is sitting across from me at this moment, using the MacAir to learn all about public transit in San Diego, and how we might use it to get around.

I'm sure we're going to have lots of fun here.  We'll be leaving on Friday morning, and will drive back up to Austin's in one day or two.  On Sunday morning, I'll be leaving there to drive back home.  Austin will get Kitty to LA Airport on Monday morning for her flight to Boston.

For a link to the few other photos taken today, click on: Monday, May 2nd, San Diego

Gregory

p.s.  This post has benefited greatly from the editing on Kitty.