Driving Highway One to Santa Barbara

We left Monterey and drove to Carmel where the Big Sur area begins & where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. We had a yummy coffee here (they DO exist! - I find if you look where the cyclists are gathered, you'll pretty much find the good coffee).

The town of Carmel (just south of Monterey) is very pretty; & the coast south from there is very picturesque - like the Great Ocean Rd in Victoria but nicer, probably because the views are almost un-interrupted. We were very lucky today because the weather was lovely, interspersed at times with mist that seemed to roll down from the mountains only to be blown back up from the sea.

We stopped lots of times & enjoyed places like Pfeiffer Beach, McWay Falls & Piedra Blanca Lightstation. We had a picnic lunch at Sand Dollar Beach.

Even further south of Big Sur, the coast was beautiful - particularly places like Cayucos & Morro Bay.

From here, we turned east to Santa Barbara, arriving there late afternoon.

We had just checked in & filled up the tank with "gas" when I saw a sign to the Old Mission which turned out to be a Spanish mission founded in 1786. It is a most attractive building & in the late afternoon sun it looked lovely.

We drove a little way up the hill behind the Old Mission where there were many attractive "haciendas" & then drove down to the beach. Here we found a long, long pier called Stearns Wharf built in 1872 & which has quite an interesting history.

Certainly Santa Barbara is very attractive & it would have been nice to spend longer here.

We had dinner late - & I had THE BEST margerita I've ever tasted.

Addendum: My Friend is enjoying the Chevy. The "jury is out" on Julie versus Tom-Tom built into the Chevy; we are probably sticking with Julie for now as we know her quite well, & I have to say, keying in destinations to the Chevy Tom-Tom is an exercise in patience!! (It is like an online game of "Letter & Numbers" - SBS TV).

Also, I've been noticing signs - with a bell - saying "El Camino Real" along the road. I made a note to mysef to look into this (as we cycled the Camino in Spain, I am interested in all things "Camino" - & funnily enough David was telling me on the phone last night that he has just seen the film The Way about the Camino!). Well, El Camino Real (http://www.cahighways.org/elcamino.html) is a footpath that was built along the coast to link the missions that were established (the first in 1769 at San Diego).