Adventures with Munchkinhead Part 1

Yesterday, my little Munchkinhead and I set off on a three-day tour.  Me behind the wheel and her as navigating skipper, we set off from El Cerrito down the coast of California.

Highway 1 from San Francisco all the way down to San Louis Obispo.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  The sea was a deep aquamarine with black rocks jutting abruptly from the frothy white waves.  The sky, a perfect light blue with light wispy clouds.  The day was sunny and warm.

We stopped several times along the roadside to watch the waves crash against the rocks, hike down to beaches covered in glossy pebbles or soft sand, and take pictures.  We laughed as a large wave crashed into the shore, sweeping away our newly made footprints, glad we had moved in time.  “Hey look at this big tubby one!” “or this cute little baby one!” we yelled to each other from above the elephant seals sunbathing on the beach, throwing sand onto their backs with their flippers.

Lunch was served on a deck along the shores of the Big Sur river.  We both had salads, yummy white people salads that were designed more to be decorative than to be eaten.

After finishing our stretch of Hwy 1, we jogged up a bit of 101 to Hwy 58.  We had no idea of the crazy adventures that awaited us there!  Curvy, narrow roads climbing huge hills, round and round, up, down, left, right, weeeeee. 

Munchkinhead and I are both a bit prone to motion sickness.  Some of those hills, as we went up, up and then crested the hill, our stomachs felt like they were gonig to drop right out of our bodies and be left sitting there at the top of the hill.  Luckily, a good supply of water, fresh air from the windows and the absolutely breathtakingly beautiful scenery kept us together.

Then we saw the sign.  A sign no girl ever wants to see, “Next services 82 miles.”  At least we had a full tank of gas.  (My car gets great gas mileage, amazing really if you consider that it’s a 17 year old boat.)  The countryside was beautiful.  We wound our way up and around high hills, going up over 2000 feet, and then winding our way back down the other side.

Needing that 82 miles to end soon, Munchkinhead found a great little shortcut that cut straight east while our hwy dipped down sound and turned north again in a V-shape.  So we took the shortcut.  Right through Chevron’s oil fields. Neither of us had ever seen so many oil rigs before!  The smell wasn’t great for our already slightly dizzy and nauseous bodies, but it was a neat shortcut.

We finally stopped for the night outside of Bakersfield, ready to continue our journey east in the morning.