With a quick overview of Los Angeles and vacinity under my belt, I cleared some of the lesser pictures from my cameras memory and gassed up the car for the drive to the Bay Area.

If there is one trip I could suggest to anyone in America, it's the drive up California Highway 1 and US Highway 101 between Los Angeles and San Jose. During that trip, you'll be rewarded with some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. From beautiful beaches and coastline to winding roads nestled halfway up a mountain.

Malibu (Overlooking the ocean)

After winding up along the rocky shores north of Los Angeles, I entered the pearl of the local beaches. Malibu was a stunning jumping off point for my journey north. It exceeded my visions of what a beautiful beach could look like.

The beautiful blue sky mixed with the deep blue ocean and green and beige hills and mountains.

When I discovered Pepperdine University located right on the ocean, I decided to drive around the campus and get some photos of the landscapes and the ocean. I was reminded of the line from Field of Dreams where Ray Liotta asks Kevin Costner "Is this heaven?". No, it's Malibu.

Pepperdine University (I should have gone to college here!)

Allow me a moment to digress. If there are two regrets I carry with me about this trip, they are my lack of a good camera with plenty of storage space and the fact I didn't keep a journal. To date, only my Canadian trip of 2001 and Alaskan vacation have any kind of notes. While I can offer general memories on this California trip, I have to apologize for the lack of great detail. My hope is, that some of these pictures will be freshened on my 2003 trip to the coast.

With all of that said, I seem to recall all of these events occuring on Saturday. Proof that I barely escape the car on some of my trips. It was probably 2 pm by the time I headed north from Malibu.

Just north of Santa Barbara I had my first - almost - mishap of the trip. I had decided to hold off on buying gasoline and my car was getting dangerouly low on fuel. I was in the middle of the Santa Ynez Mountians on Highway 101 when I realized my mistake. I was praying for gasoline around Las Cruces and was past the point of being able to turn around to the last station. I decided to skip the short stretch of Highway 1 to make sure I found a gas station, thinking the freeway would be more likely to have stations. I believe it was in Buellton, CA when I finally found a station, just in the nick of time. I decided from that point on to make sure I always had at least 1/3 of a tank of gas in the car.

Big Sur (80 miles into the drive up Highway 1)

The weather was all I could ask for - up to San Luis Obispo. Once I headed north on Highway 1 though, things began to get misty and cloudy. Unfortunatly this was probably the most spectacular part of the journey as far as scenery goes.

For those who have never driven Highway 1 between Morro Bay and Carmel, let me warn you, it's over 100 miles of twisting turning road with no gasoline, food or rest stops. That being said, I think every person that loves spectacular scenery should get to see it at least once (and hopefully without clouds). By the time I reached Big Sur, it was around 7 pm and getting dark.

Monterey (just past sunset on the dock)

I drove around Carmel for a few minutes, but a rain shower disuaded any further investigation. My quick departure was rewarded by a beautiful sunset off of Monterey's fishing warfs.

If I had it to do again, I would probably split the drive up the coast into two days and would have spent a day in Los Angeles and a day enjoying San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Carmel.

My next stop was the hotel. I spent the hour long drive inland listening to UCLA football on the radio. It was quite unique for an east-coaster to hear all the final scores from the east and the in-progress west coast games at a decent hour. I arrived at my hotel in Santa Nella off Interstate 5 before midnight.