Road trip!

Road tripping from San Francisco to LA wasn't something that I wanted to do on my own so after putting up a notice at the hostel I ended up in car with 2 guys heading down the coast.

Ed and Henry - slightly surprised by the weather....

Our first night was stop was at a motel in Monterey - we arrived too late to see much of Monterey, but the next day we drove 17 mile drive to see the spectacular views of the coast and this is where I got arty with the camera!

This part of the coast is notorious for the fog at this time of year and we saw this effect popping in and out of the cloud bank!

A bt further down the coast we spotted Elephant seal beach - absolutely covered in the seals

When we popped out of the fog briefly we saw a sign for live music and BBQ at Ragged point. It smelt so good that I had to try the Tri Tip - which was enough for the 3 of us!

After lunch I visited Hearst castle - the country house of William Randolph Hearst - a media tycoon back in the 20s.

 It was constructed from steel reinforced concrete to be earthquake proof and then decorated eclectically with ancient tapestries, choir stalls and church ceilings from Italy and Spain etc. 

William Hearst used to invite movie stars including Charlie Chaplin up for the weekend and entry to entertain them with including his own movie theatre.

The Neptune pool is meant to be the most photographed pool... In the world.. ever... I'm fairly sure I'm not making that up!

When we got to Morro bay - there was no room at the inn or rather the state park camping ground so instead we found the cheapest motel in Arroyo Grande... Probably nowhere near the best and it was disconcerting that the owner kept saying how safe it was!!

The next morning we beat a hasty retreat and went to San Luis Obispo to check out the mission and college town and to get a proper Diner brekkie.

Unfortunately on the way back down highway 101 we ran over some camp chairs in the middle of the highway, which took out the radiator and the air con unit - so we ended at the Ford Garage 30 yards from where we started the day!

We stayed in a much nicer motel 6 at Grover beach for 2 nights whilst they fixed up the car - checking out  Pismo beach for happy hours, the brewing company and a few games of pool - shame the beach was too windswept - felt like Norfolk!

Unsurprisingly kites were popular....