Thanks in part to suggestions by Ron Rader and others on this list George
Henke and I had a pleasant trip home from San Diego to the Bay area, with the
only really unpleasant time being the stretch between LAX and Santa Monica on
the
405, which lasted only about 15 minutes.
We followed I5 up to San Clemente early on Saturday morning, mostly through
the cool, moist marine layer, then pulled off at the first exit in San Clemente
in search of breakfast. Pulling into the driverway of a garage that
advertised "We repair American, European, and Japanese Cars" to get our
bearings, we
decided to try further down the road, when we heard from the garage: "Don't go
anywhere until I've had a chance to look at your cars." The older fellow in the
garage said he had a 100, just like George's, in his garage that he was going
to restore when he got the time. He'd had it since 1974. But he sent us a
block down the street to "The Sugar Shack" -- an independent little place that
turned out to have the best breakfasts in town according to one of the folks
waiting on line for a table when we came out after eating. Apparently we got
there just in time to avoid the rush.
>From San Clemente we followed the Pacific Coast Highway through several beach
towns with Laguna in their names, slow and stop-light ridden, but fun to see
the Orange County beach folks at play on a Saturday morning.
Then up past Orange County Airport and on the 405 to Santa Monica, where we
picked up 1 again along the Pacific Palisades, past the gated mansions near
Malibu and up to Oxnard along some beautiful curvy coastal highways, with
little
traffic, even on a Saturday morning.
>From there through Santa Barbara along 101, where we could see the plumes of
smoke rising out of the hills above SB and Goleta and the fire trucks moving
from place to place along the county roads, close enough to the fire to get ash
dropped on the cars occasionally. From there all that was left was the
stretch of 101 made famous in the movie Sideways -- pretty driving -- to Bob
Segui's
in Santa Maria.
Thanks, Ron, for the suggestions. The coastal interludes were a nice way to
break up the freeway driving.
Today, it was an easy trip up 101 to San Jose, but from the road, we could
see the smoke clouds along the coastal ridges west of King City -- scary stuff.
Not the longest drive I've ever made to a Conclave or Rendezvous -- about 525
miles each way -- but pleasant and personally incident-free, with my BN7 and
George's BN1 running like champs the whole way.
Cheers
Gary
**************
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