Highway1 between San Francisco & San Diego

The Coast of California (Carly): Tue 16/01/2007 5:22 PM

Well hello again - sick of my emails yet?

After wasting a few days in San Francisco we were really happy to see Mum, Dad and Scott! I drove Adam crazy in the run up by asking if he was excited all the time!

Dad hired a car so when they arrived we drove straight down to Monterey. The hotel was palatial after what Adam and I had become accustomed to! We especially liked the gold luggage trolleys and lifts - a million times better than hefting our bags up flights of stairs!!

We took a walk down the main street to Monterey's Fisherman's Wharf where we saw a 7ft Santa and lots of expensive restaurants. As it was too late for the ocean view we opted for a cosy place on the main street. The new arrivals were very tired (for some strange reason so was I.....must have been all the excitement!) so we had an early night.

The next morning we went on the "17 Mile Drive" through a State park which includes the famous Pebble Beach Golf course. There were lots of places to park and admire the views, waves and wildlife. Mum really loved the way the waves crashed onto the rocks. We spotted some sea lions high up on a rock surrounded by seabird. Dad particularly liked a black bird with a red beak which he dubbed "red beak". I spotted seals swimming near some other rocks and we were surprised to learn that the kelp (type of seaweed) can grow up to 35cm a day!

We passed through Carmel but didn't manage to spot the Mayor, Clint Eastwood. Mum drove along a very narrow and winding part of the road around lots of mountains while the rest of us admired the views. At Point Lobos (another state park) Dad liked the "yellow foot" (a bird with yellow feet). We followed some trails and the boys scared Mum by climbing up some high rocks. Dad rushed around the corner to get closer to a rock covered with seals and got soaked by a huge wave! Mum and I were very glad that we were slower climbing rock the rocks than him! Later on another trail a stag walked right next to Mum and I, we managed to get Dad and Adam's attention and they got some amazing pictures. We were nearly at San Simeon when Dad spotted some driftwood on the beach. He noticed that some of it was moving so we pulled over and found that it was hundreds of elephant seals! The females were quite small but the males were up to 15ft long! They were really strange with their long noses. They made funny growling noises and smelt really bad! At the hotel we caught the end of the sunset and watched some crazy surfers who carried on in the dark! It was chilly with the sea breeze so we huddled around a fire in a stone oven.

The next day we went on a tour of Hearst Castle. Hearst inherited a fortune from his parents and was a workaholic who built up a vast media network. The castle is in the middle of nowhere so when he was there everyone of his newspapers had to be flown in daily so he could comment on them. He was 15 when the lightbulb was invented and was fascinated by electricity. The "castle" was huge and modelled on a Spanish villiage so many of the guests stayed in separate guesthouses. Some of the decoration was very strange. There were Spanish and Italian choirs stalls around the edges of the rooms and beautiful wood paneling on the ceiling had holes drilled in it for lightbulbs and "electroliers" (chandliers of bare lightbulbs) to hang out of.

I thought it was a bit tasteless that guests were given two 100 dollar bills under their plate at dinner and every champagne glass had two black pearls and an emerald/ruby in it. However Mum read that most of his guests were young struggling actors from Hollywood so I guess they must have appreciated it!In places it seemed like he had just crammed in as many antiques as possible but so long as he liked it! The swimming pools were beautiful, the outdoor one was Neptune's pool with statutes and Roman columns surrounding it and the indoor one was a mosaic Roman bath with a gold floor - yes that was real gold!

Santa Barbara was our final stop on the central coast. It was a beautiful town and we especially liked the white shooting star christmas lights down the main street. We had a walk along Sterns Wharf which is the oldest pier on the West Coast, Adam got me to stand next to a giant pelican and then it moved and I jumped out of my skin! Everyone thought this was hilarious but unfortunately for them Mum wasn't pointing the video camera at me when it happened! On the way to Malibu Mum spotted some dolphins swimming along. We were amazed to see them so close to the shore!

Now we were on the outskirts of LA but I think that will have to be a story for another time!

Love to all Carly xxxx

California road trip! (Adam): Sun 28/01/2007 11:13 PM

Hey Everyone,

Hopefully you've finished reading those last few emails by now, i am still miles behind because we've come a long way since San Francisco.

When Mum, Dad and Scott arrived we started the picturesque drive down the coast of California along Highway 1. The scenery along the coast is really something special, enormous waves crash over the rocks, seals laze around on the beaches and pelicans dive for fish. Highway 1 stays right by the sea most of the way sometimes at sea level and in other places winding up cliffs. As well as the fantastic wildlife there were some man-made sights to see as well. We caught a few glimpses of people playing on the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course and drove through the town of Carmel where Clint Eastwood is Mayor. Interestingly enough the town is not like the lawless ones in his movies, advertising billboards and high heels have been banned in Carmel to keep the town looking pristine and traditional.

Along the way we stopped at Point Lobos and spied some seals and sea lions around the rocks just offshore. The waves here are the biggest i've ever seen, no wonder California is popular for surfing, much of the coast is very rocky though so surfers tend to hang around on the beaches near LA. Further down the coast we had a very pleasant surprise when Dad spotted a huge colony of Elephant Seals lying on a beach. The Elephant Seals grow up to 15ft long and the male ones have big trunk-like noses (hence the Elephant name tag). The seals only started living on this particular beach the last few years so there are barriers up to stop people getting too close to them so they will keep coming here. Most of them were just lying around making strange farting sounds but there were a few males perfecting their fighting techniques. They have very large front teeth which can grow 2ft long and they stand upright against each other and try to dig their teeth into their opponent. They fight for practice when they are young before having territorial fights when they mature. These can get very bloody and are another reason why people are not allowed onto the beach.

We took a tour of Hearst Castle, the former home of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. He decided to build the castle on top of the hills he used to camp on as a young boy. The location is very isolated with a long winding road leading up the hills, the castle has it's own airstrip and Hearst used to get copies of his papers flown in every day. Hearst designed the castle himself but sadly didn't finish it before he died and strangely his family sold it to the state as a tourist attraction rather than finishing his dream. In the style of Michael Jackson Hearst built his own Neverland ranch complete with a zoo, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a home cinema and a lot of spare bedrooms, i think his guests were generally around his age tho'. For his 21st birthday his mum gave him a loan of seven million dollars and he already owned several newspapers! No wonder the guy decorated the floor of his pool house with gold.

On the way into LA Mum spotted a group of dolphins swimming along the coast so we pulled over and took a few pics. It was amazing to see them all swimming together in the wild so near to the beach. As we got nearer to LA we became more and more inconspicuous in our hire car. It was a great big Ford Explorer - or so i thought until i saw some of the other trucks on the road. Most of the cars in LA are massive 4x4s and most of the ones we saw have one person in them - no wonder America is contributing the most to global warming!

Anyway i'll leave it there for now, next time i'll fill you in on Los Angeles.

Hope everyone is well, speak to u soon

Adam