When we left San Francisco this morning, I'm not sure who was more excited about the day. I had driven Highway 1 down the Pacific coast before and I think it is one of the best roads I've ever seen. I'd been building up the trip so Faith was ready and willing to check it out.
We left in the fog and very cool temperatures but I told her that it would clear and she'd be in for a fantastic ride. But it seemed that the fog was going to ride the coast right along with us. When we were riding at the higher altitudes the temps weren't too bad but the times that we were riding right down along the beach it got pretty chilly.
Sometimes the fog made things even more scenic than normal but I had wanted Faith to see the beauty of the roads that wind up and down and curve in and out around the mountains with the Pacific crashing at the rocks below.
Sometimes we'd get a little break and we could actually see the beach but those times were rare.
I began to think that the fog might have been a blessing because there are parts of the highway through the Big Sur area when you are really quite a way up on the side of a mountain riding on a very winding road with very little keeping you from going over the side. So as you can see in the photo, when we were at some of the higher elevations, the drop and the ocean were covered with a blanket of fog so Faith didn't really see just how bad the drop was. It almost looked like we were above the clouds but the fog covered everything as far as you could see. That situation kept her a lot quieter than she would have been on a clear day.
At one of the overlooks we found another of the many admirers of the trike. Sometimes it's the trike and sometimes the trailer. We even had a guy who asked permission to take a photo or two of the trike and trailer.
As we got closer to our stop of the day, we passed a lot that was full of cars and people lining the beach so we pulled in to see what all the excitement was about. It seems that this is a beach where elephant seals like to come and relax in the sun. There were probably 70-80 of them sleeping on the beach oblivious to the crowds and the noise of cars and motorcycles.
Our hotel was in San Simeon just south of the Hearst Castle. We were pleasantly surprised when we checked in. Our room was great. It had a sofa and gas fireplace. The pool was heated and very relaxing. They put out a very nice complimentary breakfast. The only complaint we had was that they were under water restrictions so we couldn't use the water jets in the Jacuzzi that we had in our bathroom.
After a good Mexican dinner right next door to the hotel, Faith wanted to get some sunset photos. Our hotel was right on the beach but there are a lot of trees behind it so she had to walk a little bit down the street.
It seems that people on the west coast really like sunsets. She was joined by a group of sunset watchers and they waited a little bit until they got what they came for. You can see here that it was worth the wait. Faith is getting quite good at her sunset shots.
Although I wasn't planning on many more longer rides, we finished the day at 222 miles and a thousand memories!!
This is just a sampling of the pictures that Faith took along the coast and of her sunset. Check out our Facebook for a whole bunch more!!
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