ROAD TRIP
Pacific Coast Highway
The coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles is all about slowing down and swooning. Backdrops like this will bring out anyone's inner romantic
Day 1: San Francisco to Carmel
Shortly after we married, my wife and I discovered that the drive down Highway 1, California's coastal route, is much like young love: romantic, impractical, and filled with dizzying twists and turns. It was also crowded. Sara and I made our first trip together one summer on a day-and-a-half jaunt from San Francisco to L.A., a clip too quick to appreciate the views, but not fast enough for the leadfoots tailgating us.
Over the next seven years, on subsequent trips south, we forsook Highway 1 for I-5, the big inland interstate, the highway of pragmatic middle age. But the beauty of the coast always beckoned. Sara grew restless (the seven-year itch?) for a scenic road trip. So we waited for winter, the sleepy season. We would be more mature this time around. When other cars breathed down our bumper, we'd pull aside instead of flipping them off. We'd hold hands. We'd watch the sunset.
This highway--unlike most--was never meant to be hurried. It took 15 years to build, and even today, a lifetime after it opened during Franklin Roosevelt's tenure, it remains in a steady state of reconstruction--stretches of it buried under winter mudslides, or worn down by the ocean's constant kiss.
The sky was clear and so was the road as we eased our way south of San Francisco. On the right side of the highway, waves frothed white against empty beaches. On the left, farmland formed a carpet of emerald green. We passed the crescent coastline of Half Moon Bay and then, 18 miles south, took a short detour to the town of Pescadero, known for its artichoke harvests. A friend had told us we wouldn't want to do without a slice of artichoke bread at Arcangeli Grocery Co. More bread than artichoke, it wasn't worth the side trip, but it tided us over as we cut back to the coast.
Outside of Santa Cruz we shot north on Highway 9 to the mountainside town of Felton, where a local artist named Michael Rugg runs the free Bigfoot Discovery Museum. A cheery, bearish man, Rugg stood behind the counter when we walked in, relaying tales of Bigfoot sightings to a young, wide-eyed believer. Catching us eavesdropping, Rugg waved us over and showed us a term paper he wrote in 1967 as a Stanford undergrad: "A History and Discussion of the Abominable Snowman Question."
It was more persuasive than some of his other exhibits, like the Milton Bradley yeti board game, or the tabloid headline, complete with doctored photo, hanging on the wall: "World's First Bigfoot Hooker."
The museum is barely larger than a woodshed, but we managed to stay for an hour. I was delighted, though not entirely convinced, by a Roger Patterson film, a significant snippet from the canon of Bigfoot studies, which shows a large ape-man ambling along a wooded stream. "A lot of people say it's just a guy in a gorilla suit, but I know it's real," said a visitor, a man in his 40s with a dreamy stare.
Like Bigfoot, Santa Cruz has a reputation for attracting plenty of eccentrics--a reputation promoted by the city, whose residents buy bumper stickers that read keep santa cruz weird. The Gelatomania Café downtown is odd, all right. Run by Buddhists, it's an Italian ice cream shop that doubles as an oxygen bar. Sara got a scoop of chocolate gelato, while I shelled out five bucks to inhale air scented like the sea.
That fragrance grew stronger when we got to Steamer Lane, one of the best surf spots on the West Coast. Dozens of surfers bobbed in the water, waiting for a fleeting shot at glory. The sun was hanging low by the time we arrived at the 17-Mile Drive, the famous gated loop that winds past landmark golf courses and zillion-dollar mansions. We paid $9 for the right to drive it, and left an hour later with a much clearer sense of how the other 0.001 percent lives.
For dinner, we split a wood-fire pizza at Cafe Rustica, a homey restaurant in Carmel Valley, the inland stepsister to Carmel. It's a 15-minute detour off the highway, a small sacrifice for a good pizza.
Lodging
Food
Activities
