Highway One to San Francisco

Despite ongoing military action in the Middle East and the crescendo of a landmark presidential election, one issue above all else was all consuming for Americans this summer.
In the land were car is king, escalating oil prices doggedly dominated the news, consistently dishing out distress to the gas guzzling public.
Having for so long taken for granted relatively inconspicuous prices at the pump, people have been left shell-shocked (if you’ll forgive the pun) by the unprecedented rise in fuel costs.
So with the zenith of that surge occurring during the period I was in California, the costliest region in the country, one could be forgiven for cursing anything from the luck of my timing and placement, to how it was possible to lose so many pairs of sunglasses on a single trip.
That is until you hit Highway One at least.

For someone who would usually associate driving with labouring down the M6, the stretch of tarmac that spans the bulk of the US west coast introduced me to motoring pleasures I had thought the preserve of Jaguar adverts and maverick secret agents.
Granted, the Ford Focus doesn’t take you to the peak of automotive decadence, but who cares about a bit of walnut dash when a panorama of such natural beauty has opened up ahead of you.
Upon leaving a rather macabre fog-filled San Simeon, we were quickly brought into close proximity with a colony of elephant seals.
Seeing these huge beasts in such great numbers during moulting season was worth the driving expenditure alone.
We continued to navigate the ocean route at our leisure in splendid isolation.

The intention was simply to progress along the same road to pass through Big Sur but our freedom of the highway forged a suspicion that it would be closed ahead as a result of the fires in the park.
True enough we were eventually faced with the option of simply turning back the many miles to reach Highway 101, or the mystery prize of a passage over the Santa Lucia Mountains.
We would have been neglecting our spirits of adventure if we had chosen the former.

The Nacimiento-Ferguson road was a detour like no other. The narrow mountain climb felt like an eternity for my travelling companion, with the car teetering next to a pine-laden drop.
Views of the Pacific were intermittently forged as if heading up a fantastical helter-skelter. With car, girlfriend and I all accounted for we eventually arrived in Monterey later that evening.
With its clean streets, sea air and sophisticated lifestyle, this ocean rich community had many of the desirable qualities you would associate with the west coast, with none of the drags of life in Los Angeles.
However its palpable wealth was notably dwarfed by neighbouring Carmel and the dizzying extravagance of Californian consumption was further evidenced with a tour of the 17-mile drive, a private stretch of road that costs $10 a car to enter and includes the Pebble Beach PGA golf course and a throng of mansions.

Santa Cruz, which we reached later that evening, was a contrastingly care free resort and the kind of place you could picture the average American family taking a holiday to in the ‘50s.
Despite promoting a reputation as a haven for bawdy college students, there wasn’t a drink to be had after 10 o’ clock, although by then descendants had no doubt worn themselves out at the town’s premier attraction.
The kitsch boardwalk amusement park lacked the polish of Disneyland but compensated that with fun and value for money. The wooden giant dipper roller coaster has, in over 80 years of operation, been featured in films such as ‘The Lost Boys’ and was more thrilling than any of its modern contemporaries in combining conventional high speed ride exhilaration with a fear that teeth may be lost in the process.

For the final stretch of our sunshine state adventure we travelled to San Francisco. The approach into the city met with my recently acquired expectation for staggering new experiences that seem almost unreal now. Entering from the south you are met with an array of colour. The sloping landscape is stocked with the vibrancy of a Brazilian favela and the inviting charm of an English country village.
The area we stayed in wasn’t such an uplifting environment however and under advice of the hotel manager we were not to stray too far in a certain direction. The prevalence of pan handlers is a sad fact of life in American cities and they are prominent to an unrecognisable level compared to home.
With the tolerance they are afforded in San Francisco they are nowhere more numerous – particularly in the streets that adjoined our hotel.

The hotel itself, one of the few in the city to squeeze into our budget, supplied us with one toilet roll for use in the shared facilities over the course of the four night stay. Any pampered sole seeking more than their ration would likely be required to give advanced warning so that a sheet at a time could be retrieved from a closely guarded safe. The creaking lift, no doubt weighed down by years of complimentary toiletries, allowed guests to listen to its every working component with angst. That said however, after weeks of youth hostels it was still a relative luxury and supplied a decent base in the city.
I like to think I can arrive in every place I visit devoid of preconceptions but I was still somewhat surprised at the degree to which my visions of a hippy paradise had been misguided.

Finding my way within the slightly harsher reality I eventually discovered the attraction of San Francisco. Its breathtaking steep streets rang true, as anyone who has walked up, or driven down one will testify. A long wind swept bike ride from the Golden Gate Park to the famous bridge that shares its name brought us through some of the more genteel neighbourhoods on a blustery day beside the ocean. Later, an equally exposed boat ride took us around Alcatraz after a long awaited cross-town cable car ride.

Regrettably, it was time to depart from my travelling companion, who was returning to more familiar climes. I, for the first time, was headed east, for the last few weeks of my adventure and a trek into the unknown.