Day-41: Morro Bay to San Francisco

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Morro Bay in the Morning

Sheila was up at 4:30 with the shower running and hair dryer blowing, so, I was up too. Out of the hotel by 6 AM we made our first stop two minutes later at Sun-N-Buns bakery for a healthy breakfast to go, hot chocolate and pastries.

We needed gas before beginning the Big Sur trek so we stopped before leaving Morro Bay. The price today was $3.999/gallon, ouch! By 6:20 we were officially headed north on CA-1

Piedras Blancas Light Station

Along the way north we stopped at various overlooks including Piedras Blancas a beach just north of San Simeon. The beach is noted as a home for Elephant Seals with as many as 17,000 hauling out for a little R&R throughout the year (www.elephantseal.org). Also in the area is the Piedras Blancas Light Station currently owned and operated by the Bureau of Land Management. This might raise the question; did the light operate during the government shutdown? Further up the road we came upon the Point Sur Light Station.

Point Sur Light Station

Arriving in the community of Big Sur we came upon Nepenthe Restaurant and Café Kevah. This is notable as in our early planning for the Monterey portion of this trip there had been some discussion of driving down the coast for lunch at the restaurant. As for today, it was 9 AM and the café was just opening but with our tight schedule we opted to move on up the coast.

As anyone that has driven this part of the California coast knows, the vistas are dramatic and beautiful, clearly one of the best drives in the country and perhaps the world. Someday, perhaps we’ll have a couple of days to repeat the drive and make stops along the way at light stations, outlooks and even famous restaurants and inns.

From Santa Cruz we turned onto CA-17 north toward the San Jose area taking CA-85 passing Cupertino en-route to Los Altos. Appropriately we paid homage as we passed by the home of Apple, the company. Even though we were still a few miles away, the iPhones, iPads and MacBook were showing symptoms of being homesick.

Arlene & Dick
Sheila & Nick

Our purpose in going to Los Altos was to meet up with long-time Navy friends, Arlene and Dick. We had initially met them in 1972 in Newport, RI. Arriving at their home, we quickly caught-up on families and our lives of the past twenty-five years. We had last seen Arlene and Dick while we were living in Danville in the late 80’s. For lunch they took us into downtown Los Altos where we had lunch at Pompeii Ristorante. The Italian salads and entrees were great, mine being the basic spaghetti and meatballs; mighty good. Around 2 PM we had to part ways with Dick and Arlene but were appreciative of the opportunity to meet up again. All agreed that it wouldn’t be prudent to wait for another 25 years for our next reunion, sooner might be better.

Pompeii Ristorante
(Our Table at the Center)

Los Altos, CA

Moving on toward San Francisco, Sheila began the search for the night’s lodging. Actually it would be for two nights, hopefully near the airport. Within a few minutes it was clear that San Francisco was a popular place to be, no rooms were to be had for what we considered to be reasonable rates, though the downtown hotels had rooms if we were willing to pay $400+/night. After having no success at our usual list of hotels, e.g. Hilton, Marriott and Best Western, etc. she found a room at the airport (SFO) Holiday Inn for an unreasonable rate but one that would offer a few dollars savings for an early turn-in of our rental car. So after 40+ days on the road, we would be staying at one of the priciest lodges of the trip with a not-so spectacular view of another building from our window, no fireplace, so-so Internet, paper-thin walls and the sound of heavy-jets climbing for all they’re worth at about a thousand feet having departed on SFO’s Runway 28R less than a mile from our room. On the plus side, the hotel van would get us to the airport early on Thursday and during our stay there would be a wine & cheese reception each night.

SFO
(Hotel room about 1/2" to the left of the center-left edge of picture)

After settling in, to maximize our hotel value, we went down for the wine and cheese tasting. The cheese and fruit were fairly typical and the wine was good but didn’t stand a chance when compared to that consumed over the past 6-weeks. The staff hospitality was nice and we enjoyed the moment as well as the opportunity to meet a few more strangers, aka hotel guests.

By 7 we were back upstairs in the room, it would be a night offering the chance for clearing some of my Helium & family admin backlog. Though it was a good plan, the execution was poor as by 8:00 I had moved over to the bed and within minutes was asleep, just for a nap of course as it was still early.