Category: Southern California Coast
Long Drive Home
We woke up and hit the road, knowing we had over 450 miles of President’s Day traffic to get through to get home. Around mid-morning, we pulled into Encinitas to have breakfast. While waiting at the stop light, I noticed our car was literally smoking.
We pulled into a small, nice cafe, and figured we’d eat while the car cooled down. We called Cho for advice on what to do. He suggested we pour some water into the radiator, and immediately drive to a gas station to get it looked at.
As it was a holiday, and also we couldn’t drive far, we pulled into the first gas station, where an extremely helpful and friendly gentleman behind the counter advised us on what coolant to purchase, and helped us out. Our car was smoking again, despite only driving about a mile to the gas station. But once the coolant was in, our car was fine- except that it was leaking fluids slowly.
Hitting the road, we got slown down by horrendous LA (and outskirts traffic). 4 hours later we had reached the grapevine outside LA. The car was smoking again so we put in fluids and continued. We repeated this a bunch of times throughout the drive home.
After Highway 5, we stopped at the 152 junction for some dinner and a final pouring of liquids into the car. This enabled us to finally get home, pretty exhausted.
Despite being tired, we both thought the trip to San Diego was wonderful.
Some random musings following this trip:
- I’ve finally driven the entire length of Highway 1. It’s not terribly exciting in SoCal; in fact, I hope never to have to drive it again.
- This is it for California lighthouses for me. It’s time to shift over to Washington state.
- By rough estimate, I’ve driven 1005 miles of California coast. This includes most of the Lost Coast (not all accessible), and includes the CA-OR border as well as the Mex-CA border. That’s the entire California coastline.
- It’s amazing how many times we’ve gone off the roads, over the years, into little nooks and crannies just to try to see the entire coastline.
- Perhaps one of these years I’ll walk/camp the entire Lost Coast.
- Now that I’ve seen it all, the Mendocino coast is definitely my favorite part of the state’s coastline.
- Southern California feels like a different state (if not country) altogether. The weather is totally different, and people seem totally different. Not in a bad way different, just not like NorCal. Much slower, much more tanned, much more laid back. And yet, having to cope with horrendous traffic and perpetually hot weather, even in the Winter. Though not cut out for me, I can see why people- especially those who love the sun and warm outdoors- love SoCal.
- The Southern California coastline is very sandy, full of beaches, and is more oriented to people spending time there as compared to the northern coast.
Border Field State Park and Coronado
We woke up late on Valentine’s Day morning. I got us some coffee and small cakes from the hotel lobby, and we made our way out to Coronado to drive the final stretch of California coast, leading to Border Field State Park.
I wanted to not only see the last of the CA coast, but also to get out to the Southwestern most point in the entire country.
We pulled into the park, and in the 78 degree heat, walked west for a mile to get out to the coast. From the coast, it was a half mile south to reach the California-Mexico border. At the border is literally a wooden fence, I would guess about 10-12 feet high. We saw a couple dozen people on the other side and waved to them. It would have been tempting to cross or at least linger at the border, but a patrol guy, somewhat angrily demanded we back off the border. Thankfully he didn’t show up until a minute or two after we reached the fence, so we were able to enjoy reaching the Southwestern most point.
A lighthouse and stadium in the distance on the Mexican side
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The end of the trail to the coast
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Still have a half mile south to go
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Friendly folks in Mexico
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I’m at the Southwestern most point
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Seems so easy to get into Mexico (or vice versa)
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We made the trek back to the car and headed back to Coronado, where we ate lunch at the Hotel Del Coronado. The food was amazing! We finally cooled down, and eventually returned to our hotel.
We stepped out to see the roof of our hotel, after having heard much about it. It was pretty impressive. There was a gym, an outdoor pool, outdoor bar, and lots of places to sit or lounge and just look out at San Diego.
Picking a different Italian restaurant this time, we had another great dinner at the Gaslamp. We strolled around the quarters stopping by various shops and galleries, and eventually turned in for the night.
Point Loma and the SoCal Coast
For President’s day weekend, we decided to head down to San Diego. The plan was to drive down the coast, to see the rest of California’s coastline, and also to see the new and old Point Loma lighthouses.
We started out driving Friday afternoon after work, headed to Santa Barbara. It seemed like a good halfway point between the bay area and San Diego. Not to mention, we hadn’t seen the coastline south of Santa Barbara, nor had we driven the parts of Highway 1 south of there.
We got into Santa Barabara Friday night and prepared for a long day on Saturday.
Early Saturday morning, we headed to the Worker Bee Cafe in Carpinteria, a lovely family owned restaurant. We enjoyed a great breakfast, then hit the road, driving all along the coast and Highway 1.
The southern California coast was mostly sandy, at times pebbly, with some rocky areas, but rather unrugged. There were some really nice waves in many areas, almost like blankets right on top of each other. Aliso beach, in particular, had some really high swells.
We passed by lots of homes, supported by beams, facing the ocean. Along the drive were many rises and descents, from small hills to mountains. It was sunny and warm the entire drive. It was right around the mid-high 70s the entire weekend down south.
Unfortunately, many stretches of Highway 1 run inland (we often cut off Highway 1 to see the coast, and came back where we left off), and we effectively just drove through city streets with traffic lights slowing us down at every block. It was an extremely slow drive.
Right around Dana Point we pulled over at a nice cafe for an energizing sugary stop. Afterwards we hit the road going south, and a half mile later, we finished the rest of Highway 1. I hope to never drive this part of Highway 1 again, but was extremely happy to have driven all 656 miles of Highway 1: starting at roughly Leggett in the north, and ending roughly at Dana Point in the south. Over the last few years, with our various lighthouse or coastal trips, we had managed to drive all parts of this road.
Down what was then called the Coast Highway, we continued along the coast, to get to the southwest strip of land, just west of San Diego. Driving through much more of the same- sandy coastline, tons of stop lights, lots of people and restaurants, we eventually reached Cabrillo National Park, where the two Point Loma lighthouses could be seen. The park closes at 5pm and we got there at 4:45pm, having taken a significantly longer time than expected to reach this destination.
We parked the car and were immediately able to see the old Point Loma Lighthouse. We climbed inside it, and by the time we came out, it was 5pm. As I could not bare to leave the park without seeing the new Point Loma, I quickly ran to a vista point, despite a coast guard gentleman calling out to me not to do so as they were closing. I was ecstatic to see new Point Loma from the lookout point some few hundred yards into the closed area. Worse yet, I was determined to run back and get the camera from Tobia to take some pictures. I pleaded with the coast guard to let me go back to the vista point with the camera, promising to run both ways and be really quick. He reluctantly agreed and I was most thankful to be able to snap some pictures.
Old Point Loma Lighthouse
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Old Point Loma Lighthouse
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New Point Loma Lighthouse from vista point
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New Point Loma Lighthouse from vista point
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Totally happy to have snapped pics of New Point Loma Lighthouse, but also out of breath from so much running
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Looking out east at San Diego from Cabrillo National Park
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Following this extreme running high and being out of breath, we were led to the parking lot and left the park. From there it was off to San Diego, where we pulled into the Gaslamp quarters, checked into our awesome Ivy Hotel, and had an incredible outdoor dinner at an Italian restaurant in the quarters.
We were exhausted at the end of this long day and slept really hard.