Steinbeck and Janis Joplin

Waking up in Big Sur State Park was breathtakingly beautiful. And breathtakingly cold. We realised we are not equipped to camp in temperatures below freezing and we are here too soon in the year. So we decided to head back south then east toward Florida (eventually) and we will see northern California at the end of the trip, in Summer.

After yoghurt and hot chocolate for breakfast, and a walk around the area, we hit the road. From Big Sur we had to continue north up the coast before we could turn around, southward onto US 101. The coast highway north through the town of Carmel (which amazingly looked like a story book town) and into the larger town of Monterey, where we had business to attend to.

We had to re-register our car and change the pink slip to our name. We also had to pass a smog check for this. We were worried that it may fail the smog test or that the DMV may take issue with Mark's foreign licence and lack of permanent Californian address (we used our hotel in LA – where they are holding our mail for us, until our return in three months). This bureaucracy had the potential to stop our trip dead. It was a huge relief when all went well.
Point of Interest: change of ownership plus 12 months registration cost $135.

From Monterey we headed inland, and passed through the agriculture town of Salinas. This is the hometown of John Steinbeck (whom Mark is reading at the moment).

From Salinas we got onto US 101 and headed south. We had a smooth and pleasant journey through 100 miles of farm land. It is very green here with tall rolling hills and wide flat valleys.

We have stopped for the night in a cheap motel in the town of Santa Maria (about 130 miles north-west of LA) and will tomorrow we will start the journey East.

For dinner we had three pieces of pizza. But they were big pieces.

Funny Fact: The town of Salinas has been made famous by Janis Joplin as the place where she lost "Bobby McGee". Also, the town of Carmel is the hometown of Clint Eastwood. He spent several years as the Mayor there.

Sacky the Van

30-inch pizza!

Point Sur

Big cloverleafs. There was a whole hillside of them.

Big Sur