Northern Calfornia Road Trip

I was feeling a bit better on Friday so I took off for a whirlwind trip in Stacey's car. First I headed up in to the Sierras to Yosemite National Park -- truly awesome mountains. On Saturday I headed south into the valley and then swung back up into the mountains to King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks where I met up with Stacey and Darren and marvelled at the giant sequoia trees -- the largest living organism. They shot Return of the Jedi there so it felt like being somewhere familiar.

On Sunday I headed south-west into the valley and stopped at the site where James Dean was killed in his Porsche 550 Spider in 1955 (the location is east of Paso Robles at the intersection of highways 41 and 46). An unusual polished steel sculpture that was erected by Seita Ohnishi, a wealthy Japanese business man who idolized Dean.

After visiting the Dean Memorial I headed out to San Simeon on the coast and pitched a tent in a local camp ground. When I woke up on Monday morning I encountered the most awesome fog I've ever seen. Emerging from my tent at day break felt incredibly creepy. I literally couldn't see beyond a ten foot radius! I walked down to the beach and a jogger scared the shit out of me when he seemed to appear out of nowhere through the fog.

After the fog subsided a bit I toured Hearst Castle. The opulence of this dude's lifestyle blew my mind. Absolutely filthy rich and eccentric William Randolph Hearst built himself this mansion complete with a private zoo, full sized movie theatre and a huge Romanesque swimming pool. Ostentatious to the max!

After Hearst Castle I drove north through picturesque Big Sur. Luckily the fog had lifted by then and the view of the cliffs and rolling waves were simply spectacular. After that I browsed the quaint boutiques and art galleries of Clint Eastwood's home town of Carmel. This, combined with a cruise through "17 mile drive" -- the scenic route through the Pebble Beach Golf course -- was quite a financially humbling experience. While I thought a cruise through Cannery Row in Monterey (made famous in John Steinbeck's novels Cannery Row and East of Eden) would be more of a touch with reality, I was mistaken. Unfortunately, the old cannery district has been gentrified to the point of tacky and I found little worth seeing.

I arrived back at Stacey's last night. It was a great trip -- the Subaru is awesome! Now I want to get one. Stacey took the day off today and she's going to show me around the neighbourhood and tomorrow I'm going to head into San Fran early to check in my bags and spend the day in the city before catching the red eye home to Toronto at10:30pm. The heat wave they've been experiencing since I arrive is scheduled to break the day after I leave. Typical!

A.