Posted in terse style by Neil
Palm Springs is not a real place. It’s in the desert, but it looks like a movie set. For a SoCal soap opera, not a good old Western shootout. We were grateful for the lukewarm pool and wicked A/C, and delighted to find things we could eat in the supermarket again (hummous!), but very happy to head down to the coast for a fully 30 degree temperature drop. This meant another full day of driving, because country mice that we are, we wanted nothing at all to do with LA sprawl and nightmare traffic. So, if you are ever trying to drive around LA (and Disneyland!), here’s how you do it:
I-10 W to I-215N to 138W to 14S to I-5N to 126W to 101N.
If that sounds harder than just taking I-210 around Los Angeles, you clearly have no sense of fun (you listen to GPS when it gives instructions?). As we got close to LA we could see the smog just festering there, so it was something of a smug pleasure to dodge away through mountain ranges and on dusty roads, always staying about fifty miles from the city, and never getting stuck in traffic.
We're in California! Here is what we are paying to fill our tank!
Non-stop peculiar wonders
An electric car hook-up!
As we got closer to the coast, we noticed the landscape changing, and orange trees, and watermelons for sale at the side of the road. Sorry to say this for all you Californians, but instead of wonderment, my first thought that it reminded me of (one of my) home- Greece- just cleaner, and more expensive! But we had a true “Darien” moment when we first caught sight of the Pacific, at Ventuna- after two weeks of relentless driving, we’d finally arrived!- except that Eleni had just fallen asleep, so we couldn’t stop for another 100 miles along El Camino Real!
This meant that sadly we were never able to visit Santa Barbara and Laguna Beach, but we already know we do not belong there (after this road trip, we are starting to look less glamorous than the West Coast people we are meeting). Fortunately, she woke up screaming only 30 miles before we reached a really fine State Park just below San Luis Opispo, where we nabbed the very last tent spot.
The tent was so easy to assemble- because Kirsti, bless her, in the interests of saving space, had bought a two man tent, just like the one we had when we were first married ten years ago. Two kids later, we did all fit in, with the kids in the middle, top to tail, but only if NOBODY MOVED. So we were totally in love with the campsite, after so many bland motels, but I was just slightly dreading the whole sleeping thing. Still, the stroll through the dunes to the beautiful sandy beach, the sunset over the waves, actually being cold at night again, all were wonderful. If we could only do this all vacation, instead of having to get back in that car! But we were finally getting compliments on having come so far, thanks to our NJ license plate!
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