Father-Daughter Central California Coast Trip – Day One

June 17, 2010
Let the Trip Begin – San Diego to Santa Cruz

Though we had planned to leave San Diego around 9AM, we finally headed north on Interstate 5 around 10:30. I took the first leg to get us through the Los Angeles insanity. The “LA traffic gods” were very kind to us. The first normal slow point is at the El Toro Y where the I-5 and 405 meet and we just cruised through in the car pool lane. Even the crazy US 101 – I-405 interchange was clear. The only real slow down was due to a messy traffic accident south of Los Angeles International. Hope all involved are ok.

We stopped in Venture for gas then continued north on US 101 with plans to change drivers at the rest stop near the tunnel near Gaviota State Park. However, since my daughter was napping I drove on until we got to Santa Maria around 3PM as we both needed to take a stretch and have something to eat. As a rule when on any road trip, short or long, we try to ignore the mega national food pits and “Eat local” at a local café or dinner. We broke this rule by stopping at Arby’s, which in this case was somewhat ok as they are now few left in the San Diego area. After the pit stop, we switched drivers and continued towards Santa Cruz with plans on switching again in Salinas.

We had two choices to get to California 1 and Santa Cruz from the US 101. Exit in Salinas and take State 183 or continue on to San Juan Bautista and take State 129.

Around 6PM, Salinas was coming up quickly and since I was the navigator, I quickly reviewed the maps I made and decided that State 183 was the better choice. After we exited the US 101, we discovered that the direction signs were a bit confusing (so was the navigator). Therefore, we ended up going the wrong direction for a few minutes (we got confused at the same spot on our way back). Once we figured out which way was which, we finally got headed in the right direction to Castroville and Santa Cruz.

The drive to Castroville was relaxing as it was a two-lane highway and the view of the farm fields being harvested and being prepared for planting was a great change from seeing miles and miles of homes and strip malls in Southern California. I could get side tracked and go on and on what I feel are the benefits of driving two-lane highways and byways but I will save that for a future post.

As we approached the city limits of Castroville, we noticed a big sign that said “WELCOME TO CASTROVILLE. ARTICHOKE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD”. We now knew what they were planting and harvesting in the fields. The thought crossed our minds of stopping and getting some artichokes but decided against it as we had been on the road for about eight hours and our beds were still an hour or so away.

Where State 183 met State 1 was the only other location on the drive where we had slow traffic as it was two two-lane highways with lots of traffic going the same way trying to merge. We guessed that the traffic coming up from the Monterey area was the leftovers of the Thursday afternoon rounds of the US Open at Pebble Beach in Carmel. First impressions about the traffic were that it was going to be a nightmare around Carmel Saturday morning as the wedding site is south of Pebble Beach exit by about 5 miles. The delay was not very long though and once we merged with the northbound traffic, the rest of the drive went quickly.

We finally arrived around 8PM at our motel and were very happy to check into our rooms. After we checked in and moved our bags to our rooms, we decided to get something to eat and to do a quick check of Santa Cruz. We broke the “Eat local” rule again and picked up something at Mickey D’s because it was just down the street, and drove around a bit while eating. We finally decided to call it a night, headed back to our rooms and let our heads hit the pillow.