Hello again: Catch up post, with gratuitous cute squirrel action

One of the things that I hadn’t legislated for on this trip would be periods of complete absence of internet access and cellphone coverage, caused both by driving and staying in very mountainous areas. So many apologies for the blog silence since Friday. I was also a little distracted by partying at the weekend. Then, to my gobsmacked horror, I discovered that my accommodation on the Marin Headlands last night was Wi-Fi & cellphone free.

So: back to the trip. When I last blogged I was still in the Best Western motel in San Simeon, on an enforced break from driving due to my car being stranded fourteen miles up in the road with a blown up engine in the arse end of nowhere. The rental agency delivered a replacement Friday morning (a faster, newer, shiner replacement, so some silver lining there), and I spent the morning trapped in a Groundhog Day.

I woke up just ten miles from where I started Thursday; my lunch was from Sebastian’s again,

& I ate it at the same vista point en route. Although this time I parked myself by this sign:


And had an audience watching every mouthful:




I’m still rather miffed that the car debacle lost me so much of my exploring agenda. My schedule wasn’t particularly packed, but we had dinner reservations in San Francisco on Friday night, so my enforced overnight in San Simeon meant that I had to spend most of Friday driving the mental coastal roads to get to the city on time. So, not only did I have to cancel my stay in Big Sur on Thursday, I also missed out on visiting the Monterey Aquarium, Santa Cruz & Carmel.

This means I’ve cancelled my plans to visit Calistoga, and am heading back down South as soon as possible, retracing my route back to Big Sur. Depending on whether I love or loathe Los Angeles, I’m hoping to revisit the Bay Area and Northern California at the end of the month instead.