The views are spectacular. The wind blows off the ocean bringing mist and the smell of sea air with it. The sun shines through the mist and you are warm, then hides again and you cool down straight away as the sunlight fails to fight its way through. It parts the road is twisty and in others, straight.
The mist lingers....
Looking towards the sun makes the view seem monochrome....
Built in 1931/2, Bixby Bridge is normally photographed from the main coast road that it carries. I chose instead to ride inland along a dirt road to get a different view....
Looking back up the coast from near Bixby Bridge....
As I was taking the picture above I was talking to a guy named Brett from Bermuda. He has taken a year off work to go riding and expects to take his BMW 1200GS to wait for it....
The New England States
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
Newfoundland
Quebec
Montreal
Niagara
The Great Divide - Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho
British Columbia and all the way to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska
West coast of the US (he has got this far)
Mexico
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica
Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.
Not content with stopping there, Brett will then ship the bike to New Zealand, then ride some of Australia and onto to South East Asia or Japan.
Wow. Quite a trip!
So far, he has ridden 14,000 miles.
This is Brett....
Good luck Brett, I will be keeping an eye on you via your blog.
I rode on down Highway 1 stopping occasionally to look at the views....
I was enjoying the scenery so much, I forgot to keep an eye on my odometer and I rode right passed the 20,000 mile point on my tour! Having stopped exactly at every ‘000 mile point so far, how could I miss that one?? I thought about riding back to roughly where the point it would have been, but decided against it, so I took a picture where I was and this will have to suffice as my 20,000 mile picture....
I knew of a place where I was certain I would see Elephant Seals. This is near San Simeon....
There were many hundreds of them here and nearly all of them asleep!
William Randolph Hearst was a newspaper magnate who employed architect Julia Morgan to design a grand house for him near San Simeon, called "La Cuesta Encantada", or the Enchanted Hill. Today it is commonly known as Hearst castle, which is strange, as it looks nothing like a castle. It is quite a place to visit with fine rooms, wonderful tapestries and some gorgeous artwork....
This is one of two guest houses....
The Neptune swimming pool....
One of the verandas. The view looks over part of the estate and to the Pacific Ocean....
The main house, err, castle.... To me, it looks more like a Spanish Church....
That is quite a front door!....
Inside one of the bedrooms in one of the guests houses....
One of the main reception rooms. Note the tapestries on the walls....
The main dining hall....
My favourite place in the house is the indoor swimming pool. I so wanted to jump in here....
A long time ago I watched a TV programme in the UK about riding down the Pacific Coast and I remembered they featured a hotel called the Madonna Inn, on that show. It seemed so way-over-the-top that I just had to go see it and so I booked a room and stayed there.
They have many feature rooms and I couldn’t resist getting the Madonna Suite.... it is very pink!....
Yes, those are real rocks that make up part of the walls.
The bathroom was stunning. This is the basin, where the water flows down the rocks before spilling into the basin itself (which of course is made of rock)....
I was there in early November, but they already had their Christmas decorations in place in their restaurant!....
The Madonna Inn is certainly OTT, but great fun. It is located in San Luis Obispo. It is one of those rare place where you need to wear your sunglasses indoors. Even with the lights turned off.
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