All windswept and interesting

I was not sorry to be leaving LA. I edged the pony onto Sunset just after 7am ready for the big road trip. I had carefully punched the destination into the Sat Nav and was quickly on my way – to the freeway? Hmmm. Perhaps that’s just for the first 20 miles, then you hit the coast road. Hmmm, another 27 miles of freeway? Hmmm. This isn’t looking like the rollicking road trip I thought it would be. More like six lanes of traffic in each direction zooming with purpose. There are no fellow laconic travelers on this route. It took a while to realize Sat Nav was being efficient – not fun.

So I missed Malibu and a bunch of other small seaside towns, until I stopped at a gas station and bought a map! You know, those old fashioned pieces of paper that show a whole variety of potential journeys within a given geographical area. If only I’d had one of these antiques from the start – I could have avoided a tense hour on the LA freeways.

My mistrust of the Sat Nav grew. For the remainder of the day I purposefully ignored it’s commands with reckless abandon. I ended up driving the wrong way down a one way street in Santa Barbara (where I had breakfast), but the helpful locals shouted unintelligibly at me, so I figured it out just in the nick of time to swerve across three lanes of traffic headed in the wrong direction and right my course. It was early, not many people around in Santa Barbara at that time of day.

The main event, was a stretch of windy road between Cambria and Big Sur. Cambria was a cutesy little tourist village, a bit like Tambo, with lots of little antique shops. If only I had a shipping container handy I could have cleared out the village, shipped it over to OZ and opened a shop selling the gear at twice what I paid – so cheap. I looked longingly at two large turquoise lamps and imagined collecting them from the Pack and Send in Albion smashed to pieces. And so left them behind.

I really let 'the Pony' fly today. Consistently 20 miles over the speed limit until the roads got goat-track windy. I was almost hoping I’d get pulled over by the cops, just for the experience. But alas, no such adventure.
Intrigued by the Hearsts, mostly for the Patty – Charles Manson - Stockholm Syndrome connection – which lets face it is almost what makes them more famous now than Randolph's the billion dollar newspaper empire, I considered visiting Hearst Castle. Except a million travelers had the same idea and it’s one of those - park miles away, then pay us some money and we’ll bus you to the castle so you can’t get so much as a photo of the outside for free. No thanks.

Lucky I didn’t. Although I’d made good time flying along the flat roads, the goat track that took me to Big Sur was beautiful but the twists and turns made it a long journey. Dad, the road reminded me of that Lucille Ball movie The Long, Long Trailer – I’m sure they filmed it along there.

So I spent a glorious Friday afternoon zooming through the twists and turns in the pony, top down, wind in my hair, and my mouth, stereo blaring the Beach Boys and other trip appropriate American classics. I did briefly think about the girls at work, and Fridays in the office, and then I stepped on the accelerator and took off. Very liberating.

I am now developing a convertible tan.