Our first trip on the PCH

Nov 25,56 2004

I had driven on the PCH (Hwy 1) twice before but Aparna had never done so. This thanksgiving I decided to take her on the what is in my opinion one of the most beautiful drives on Earth. I was staying in LA downtown in those days. Heres the view of LA downtown from my apartment building.

We started early in the morning from LA, took 10W on to Hwy 1. We drove past Malibu, Santa barbara and our first stop was at San Luis Obispo for Lunch. We asked around for an Italian place to eat and found a really nice one too near the Amtrak station in San Luis Obispo! The food was delicious.

The drive on Hwy 1 after San Luis Obispo is the most beautiful part of the drive with fabulous beaches and views. Throughout the rest of our trip we kept stopping at almost every spot with a nice view. It was a gorgeous day.

Near the Heart castle, there were a lot of elephant seals lazing around. Both of us had never seen Elephant seals before and it was quite fascinating. We have visited San Simeon more than 10 times by now, but the Elephant seals never fail to capture our attention. I am sure that we love watching them for hours.

The elephant seals lie in hoards basking under the sun on the sand. Scratching their backs occasionally and sneezing occassionally. They must be one of the most relaxed species in the world. However, these are only the females. The males are quite busy fighting among each other to claim their rights over the females all the time. The alpha male challenges by lifting his head up high and roaring at the other male. The other male either retreats or answers back the challenge. They hurt each other with their teeth and it can get quite bloody. There are usually several young elephant seals that are very nice to watch. The mothers are usually quite visibly irritated by their young ones climbing over them.

There was a very beautiful beach on the way (I forgot the name) but you have to drive down to it and its absolutely fabulous.

There were quite a lot of seagulls everywhere along the drive and most of them not afraid to pose for the camera.

In some beaches the waves crashing over the rocks made for an amazing water-works display. In many beaches a lot of water plants are washed off to the shore. Some of them have large bulbs of air to keep the plants afloat. These can be quite long, sometimes upto 10 feet or more long!

And you can also use them as microphones to give an amazing on stage performance!

The part of road by the Los Padres national forest is perhaps the best part of the drive.

We stayed over night near Big Sur which has offers some very nice views of the ocean. The next day we too 17 N from Santa Cruz and then 85 to 101N to reach the Bay area.