Rewind a month. I can’t believe it has been that long. I am still trying to take it all in.
I had promised myself to rent a convertible when I get to the Pacific Coast and I kept my promise. The day after the garlic festival I drove to San Jose to pick-up my Ford Mustang convertible. Wow, what a nice toy. As I mentioned in a previous post, the night temperatures had fallen to the 60 F mark. Well, now they were in the 50s and I knew that the day time temperatures along the coast are usually not that high either. So along with my beachwear I also packed a sweater and my lined fall jacket.
The skies cleared just in time when I put down the top of the car.
What a thrill it was to drive a car that accelerates effortlessly, no raffing of the engine and all that with a gas mileage of 21 mpg.
Did I mention that it was a convertible?

Jicky in Carmel-by-the Sea

I had picked a little road that led to the Pacific (hwy 9). Turns out that it was a beautiful mountain road, with lots of fun curves. It took me through several cute small towns, Boulder Creek was one of them. I was glad that I didn’t drive the truck on this stretch of road. It would not have been a problem, just much less fun. A lot of bicyclists took advantage of the beautiful day as well. I don’t know how they do it, climbing up these steep mountain roads.
Coming down the road and seeing the Pacific Ocean spread out in front of me was just one of those moments. It could be comparable to coming to New York and seeing the city skyline either from an airplane or from the New Jersey side. It just leaves your mouth wide open.
I drove through Santa Cruz and asked for directions to the beach houses I had seen in that photo at the garlic festival. They are in Capitola, a cute, slightly touristy beach community just south of Santa Cruz. Finding parking was almost impossible. I made it to the beach and was lucky to have ten minutes of sunshine.

Capitola

I could not believe that people were actually lying at the beach; it was just above 60 F. I was wearing long pants and a sweater. Since I was parked at a 24 minute meter I couldn’t spend much time walking around. Off I went zooming down California highway 1. At least I thought I would be zooming. After just a few miles, traffic came to a halt. What was supposed to be a quick drive down to Carmel (40 miles) took one and half hours! That put a little damper on having fun. Not that I was in a rush, but I wanted to return the car before dark. I am not a fan of driving in unfamiliar territory in the dark. Also I was looking forward to driving really fast, of course within the speed limit.
Highway 1 runs inland between Santa Cruz and Carmel and you can’t see the Pacific which was the whole point of this excursion. I figured I’ll have early dinner in the lovely town of Carmel-by-the-Sea and than head down to Big Sur only 20 miles south. I remember having driven down that way before about twelve years ago. There are these great bridges along the way and I remember not being able to stop in time to take a picture of the Bixby Bridge lit by the perfect late afternoon sunlight. Well, I didn’t have much luck this time around either. Not that I couldn’t stop, but ever since I left Capitola I had not seen the sun. The coast was shrouded in clouds, not fog. At this point I was wearing my jacket as well, I did not want to put up the top.
Once I reached Bixby Bridge I decided to turn around. Good thing I did. Once again traffic very quickly came to a stand still. It turned out that there were three events taking place in the area; a wharf to wharf run, some motorcycle event and a huge flea market. The lesson of this: Don’t travel on Sundays.
At least I saw an incredible sunset sky while I was in the traffic jamb. All in all I spent about three hours in traffic, not ideal. It turned into a very long day and I was not back at the campground until 11 PM.
If I had to chose between driving a truck or driving a regular car (convertible preferred – BMW Z4 specifically) I would go with the car. Driving is so much more fun. Yes, you sit high up in the truck, but that’s about it.

To find out if I had more luck on my other excursions to the coast you have to tune in for the next episode of “Jicky’s trip to the coast”