On Memorial Day weekend, Jeremy and I skipped town and headed south on the open road - that being I-5, which is a very open road. We set out with maps, sunglasses, and the following goals: (1) Visit Jeremy's brother and his girlfriend in Hollywood. (2) Visit friends of mine in Santa Barbara. (3) Drive back up the coast along the famously scenic Highway 1. We accomplished all these things and had a lovely time, although I was so busy enjoying myself I was lax with taking photos. Here is a very incomplete photojournal of our trip.
Here's a map of our return route. Our departure was a straight shot down I-5, not as scenic but very efficient. (Strangely, it began raining as we got over Tejon Pass, and continued raining our first night in LA. Rain? In LA? At the end of May? Oy vey!)
Our main activity on Saturday was to go to the La Brea Tar Pits, or more specifically, the Page Museum, which stands at the site of the tar pit excavations. We saw an oily pond (an excavated tar pit) with a life-size stature of a drowning mammoth; a fully reconstructed sabertooth tiger skeleton overlaid with a hologram showing the animal in life; and cases and cases full of dire wolf skulls and other relics of ancient death. It was awesome!
Here I am outside the museum atop a (life-size) statue of a giant ground sloth. Although you can't tell from the photo, the statue was about eight feet tall and quite slippery, so it took me several attempts to get astride it. I didn't have my camera so Matthew was kind enough to take this photo on his cell phone.
To my delight, Los Angeles was adorned with blooming jacaranda trees, which made me homesick for Queensland.
Here is a very ritzy street in West Hollywood. We passed it on our way to Runyon Canyon, where the following photos were taken.
Jeremy and me at a lookout in Runyon Canyon. See those rain clouds? I wasn't kidding! The silver lining, though, was the beautifully clear air - a rare privilege in LA.
No prizes for guessing that Jeremy and Matthew are brothers. (They have even been stopped on the street and asked if they are twins, though they think that's kind of silly.)
Jeremy holds Hollywood in the palm of his hand.
The brothers contemplate the skyline of downtown LA.
The brothers contemplate each other, while the skyline of downtown LA looks on.
Awwww! Brothers! So cute.
Hollywood, with hollywood. What do I mean by that? The bush in the foreground is toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia), also known as California holly (it produces red berries in the winter). Legend has it that the name "Hollywood" is a reference to the abundance of this shrub in the Hollywood hills.
All Southern California girls are supposed to be blond, right? What am I to do? A quick solution comes to mind: I grab a handful of dodder (a parasitic plant lacking chlorophyll) that is growing by the side of the trail, and fashion it into a wig. Shhh! Don't tell anyone it's not real!
Jeremy thinks it looks better arranged as a crown, so now I am the Princess of Parasitic Plants. (Note: Do not try this at home unless you want to spend fifteen minutes brushing dodder tendrils out of your hair.)
This picture represents a huge temporal jump. We've said farewell to Matthew and Debby, driven up to Santa Barbara, spent a lovely night and morning with my friends Adam and Laurel, and begun the long ramble up Highway 1.
This photo is from Pismo Beach, our first long stop. It's quite an impressive beach they have here.
The flags are at half-mast because it is Memorial Day. In fact, at this moment a memorial service was being held up on the pier. We saw similar services in many of the small towns through which we drove. It wa a sobering thought that some residents of those towns had probably lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In Pismo Beach, everyone goes to the beach. Even the pigeons. I don't think I've ever seen pigeons on a beach before, but they seemed quite at home.
Our next stop was the El Moro Elfin Forest in Morro Bay, a coastal preserve showcasing marine chaparral and pygmy oaks. It's a pleasant stroll around a circular boardwalk. I was very happy because there were lots of nifty plants, and I like plants.
Either I am very large, or the oaks are very small! Probably the latter.
Next we went to the town of Morro Bay for lunch. Here is Jeremy with the famous Morro Rock that sits just off the coast from the town.
We drove out to Morro Rock after lunch. It is very tall and steep. Accordingly, there are prominent signs saying that climbing it is unlawful. The seagulls, however, seem to ignore the signs.
Almost as prominent as Morro Rock, but perhaps less scenic, is the natural-gas-fired power plant at Morro Bay.
Slightly north of Hearst Castle, we came across some people surfing with large and colorful kites, so we decided to stop and take a look. We'd never seen kiteboarders before, but they were fun to watch!
This kiteboarder is preparing to enter the water. You can see other kiteboarders in the background.
An hour or so further north, we stopped at a small trailhead. Jeremy surprised me by leading me to a waterfall! He knew it was there all along.
I explained that, in finest Bushwalkers' Club tradition, it is necessary to go swimming when one encounters a waterfall with a swimming hole. Jeremy, who has more common sense than I, said he would let me fulfill that responsibility on my own. I hadn't brought a bathing suit, and there were other hikers around, so I compromised between modesty and practicality by taking off some of my clothes, and jumped in. You may be able to tell from my breathless expression that it was VERY COLD.
Now I am starting to get used to the cold, or else just getting numb...
Ahhh! Refreshing! Definitely time to get out now.
The hard-working driver with his hard-working car. I am very out of practice with manual transmissions, so Jeremy had to do all the driving, but he claims not to have minded a bit. Here we are at Big Sur, where we went on another brief hike and were rewarded with another waterfall.
After Big Sur, we pressed on through Monterey and all the way to Santa Cruz, where we had an artichoke pizza at Kianti's, after having just driven past fields of artichokes. From Santa Cruz it was a (relatively) short drive over Highway 17 back to Mountain View, and thus ended our trip.
In case it wasn't obvious, I am very much in favor of any weekend that involves family, friends, giant sloths, native plants, beaches, waterfalls, good food and adventure!
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Last updated June 17, 2008.