Twelve

The next morning begins with a careful study of the maps. The task at hand is getting back to San Francisco not too directly. The lack of roads in the Coastal Ranges dictates a very large swing as far south as Morro Bay. This means that Fresno would indeed have been a much better idea as last night’s quarter.

Before leavin Merced southbound a do a short drive around town. It seems that in Merced the two blocks of historic city center have been shrunken to a historic intersection. Beyond it lie a hundred miles necessary to cross the San Joaquim Valley. The roads are mostly straight with the odd curve to wake up drivers. The valley ends after the town of Coalinga where a sign finally warns that there are steep and windy roads ahead. They lead up through a yellow landscape. Once across the mountain ridge it suddenly and unexpected turns green and positively lovely. Somewhere along the ride I have caught up with a truck. Together we then catch up on one of this insanely large campers. Up here the road is straight enough that the truck can overtake the painfully slow RV and later I can, too. Despite the fact that occassionally have troubles keeping up, the truck driver turns out after a while and lets me pass. This kind of thing happens all the time over here, but has yet to happen to me in Germany.

After the town of San Lucas the road turns into highway 101 which around here is a mighty freeway. There possibly is a road heading on through the mountains west to the Pacific. But my maps disagree and there is no sign. Since along the way there also is the Hunter Liggett Military Reservation (whatever that may be) I refrain from more experiments and take highway 101 south.

The freeway has an allowed maximum speed of 70 mph which translates into a whooping 112 km/h. It also has almost no traffic at all. It crosses through Camp Roberts where road signs warn that you should not pick up any hitchhikers. Is the army really that bad? Not really, the reason is the El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility.

Just south of the town of Paso Robles I leave the freeway and finally head west towards the Pacific. Unfortunately, I am not the only one. This is wine country and hence there are many tourists about. North of Cambria I am finally united again with the Pacific. I stop at the first beach, jump out of the car and down the to beach. It is kite flying windy around here, the waves are rather high as well.

What lies ahead now are a hundred miles coastal highway with no detour possible, not even a medium sized settlement in between. The road is heavily used, a good part of which are RVs. But first, there is Hearst Castle. It looks like a Spanish monastery but is in fact the fantasy of a certain William Randolph Hearst, who created a newspaper empire in the early 20th century.

Since 1957 the castle is owned by the state of California and open for public tours. This works in such a way that there is a gigantic parking lot next to the highway with a visitor center attached to it. There you have to pay you usual insane amount of money and are hearded into minibuses. What happens beyond that I have no idea since I only used their bathroom and then ran away.