December 3rd 2012
This day (Monday) was supposed to be
pretty nice (in the first winter storm), so we planned ocean's loop.
J. was feeling some sick, but she wanted to go anyway. So we left
around 8.40 and drove though residential area of San Mateo. It was
really pretty. In no time, we left hyper urban area and were almost
lost in forest. It is really interesting, how close city and nature
are. And … there was a lot of fog.
Soon, we crossed west side freeway
number 280 and were on the way to Half Moon Bay. We stopped at very
first vista point and “enjoyed” all the fog. In some ways it was
really magical and pretty. There was a lot of places selling
Christmas' trees. We as well saw few places with some left over
pumpkins.
When we started driving, it was cold in
the car. In less then half an hour, there was visible sun and the car
was pretty warm (without heater running). We got to Half Moon Bay
(which we visited before) and went to the visitor's center. Not much
helpful. Our plan was to make quick exploration trip, to do more less
drive by sight seeing. And then we can come back some other day. J.
got some places to see, so we stopped at some “funky” garden
store made from old barn. It was “funky” indeed.
In the town, we as well drove to the
beach. Again, I had some memories coming back from our previous
visit. It was really nice, it was mostly sunny, the ocean was pretty
wild and we were enjoying ourselves. We watched the ocean for a while
and then just continue driving.
The road was pretty nice. I would say
it was prettier then Oregon and Washington. There were almost no
houses or settlements. The road was mostly following the ocean. There
were some state beaches, we stopped few times, looked around and
enjoy the landscape. It was really great.
On one beach, we walked for a longer
while, because at the end (there was stream coming in) was huge
number of birds. So we walked and walked and then J. was throwing the
rocks to make them fly. It was not nice. There was a lot of pelicans.
It was amazing to see those bird flying.
We as well stopped at Pigeon Point
Lighthouse. It was really tall one, visible from big distance. There
were few cars, but the place was big enough. For most of the time, we
did not meet many people and we could enjoy our trip alone. It was
old (still in use) lighthouse and hostel next to it. We went to small
store and looked around. The guy was selling something to some lady
and said that there were some people from Czech Republic. He asked us
where we were from, so at the end, he knew I was from Czech. He said
Good Day in Czech language. It was strange. We talked with him for
probably 20 minutes, he was born in Czechoslovakia and emigrated (at
the age of 1) with his parents in 1948. He traveled, lived in Canada
and many states in Us and now was living in California. Really
interesting conversation. The lighthouse is damaged, it is not open
to public. We walked to the end, looked around and went back. We as
well stopped by another exhibition, where was older guy, who said he
was German. Small world …
We missed another beach access point,
but were able to stop along the road. We walked towards the ocean and
found there (on rocks not too far from the shore) bunch of birds and
seals. It was stinky there. Unfortunately, they were too far for good
pictures. Still, I was pretty pleased (I get kind of childish with
fish, seals … and probably bunch of other stuff).
We then continued to the beach parking
lot, it was Pebble Beach. There were two people painting and two
people taking pictures. Besides pebbles, there was as well something
called “tafoni”, which was sculpted rock. Apparently, salt water,
wind and time sculpt something spectacular. It was unbelievable what
the nature can do. And obviously, it was really pretty. Then we
walked on the pebble beach. The water was throwing the pebbles back
and forth and it was making nice noise. J. got lost in her childish
nature and was collecting pebbles and different kind of sea shells.
It took forever to get her out of there.
We continued,with few small stops, to
Santa Cruz. We entered the city and then got pretty quickly on the
shore. We stopped and found it was a place for people to surf. We
watched maybe 10 people in the water hanging on those wooden thingies
looking like seals. Time to time, they stood up and ride the wave. It
was interesting and pretty cool (I would never do it). And it got
colder there.
We then drove through Santa Cruz (it
was pretty empty along the shore). We as well made it to the downtown
area, where I remembered, that we visited this place with J.'s sister
(5-6 years ago) and she drove like maniac. We wanted to get home
relatively early, so we just continued driving.
We took the “Skyline” road. It took
quite a while to drive it, but it was really pretty. The weather got
“sketchy” again, we passed some really foggy areas. We as well go
some glimpses of the bay area, which was pretty cool. It was still
unbelievable how the city and nature were coming together and so
close. We passed through some thick woods, couple cute towns and many
twisty turns. We really enjoyed it.
