The Great (North) American Road Trip

Santa Margarita and Big Sur California
For our third consecutive night of camping, we decided we needed to take showers. Believe me, it was much needed, as driving through the desert and heat of California while sleeping outside, can do wonders for your aroma. We found a KOA campground, north of Bakersfield, in Santa Margarita. There is a lake there, which sounded like fun, so, it made for a decent enough reason to head up there. The campground was a typical KOA, as it had showers and a water spout on each site, and it was also far enough out of the way that there was cool wildlife.

There were woodpeckers and some hawks, that liked to caw for hours at a time, so, that was nice, for the first half hour. There were also many ground squirrels that were just like tree squirrels yet, they lived in an underground system like prairie dogs. We had even seen a family of next years Thanksgiving. There were Two big turkeys and about six or seven little baby turkeys trailing them. We set up camp and proceeded to wash the last couple of days of stink off of us. As I went into the shower, I noticed I had a friend hanging out in the upper corner of the stall. I dubbed him Fred because Fred the frog has a nice ring to it. After I turned on the shower he made a decision that it was in his best interest to get out before I stepped in. Fred took the subway via the shower drain, to his summer home I suppose. Feeling great after our showers, we laid around and read for a bit and then made some dinner. I previously gathered up some wood and sticks for a little fire to help get rid of the mosquitoes that like to chow on our blood. We used the fire to cook some hot dogs and made some instant add only water mashed potatoes and it turned out to be a great dinner. After dinner we played a mean game of boggle and then hit the sleeping bags.

When I got up the next morning I noticed the cooler wasn't closed all the way. Thinking nothing of it, I closed the cooler and went on my business of heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth among other things. When I returned, Jen was picking up some bags off the ground and I thought that maybe something had gotten into our garbage bag that we forgot to take to the dumpster. Then, she opened the cooler and noticed it had been ransacked. Those same cute little squirrels had taken it upon themselves to eat a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some of our granola bars. To top it all off, he left a nice turd on the picnic table as if to say thanks.

We were a little tired and slow moving still so, I headed to the laundry room so I could plug the laptop in and get down on some wifi. I researched some places to stay for our trip of the day to Big Sur California. We needed to get to the Pacific Coast Highway 1, and the way there was full of nice windy roads and great scenery. It was really pretty but, the drive does get tedious after a while. Luckily, it was Jen's turn to drive. On the highway to Big Sur we stopped at The Hearst Castle. We had previously meant to stop there a year ago on a previous Cali trip, but got there too late. We went up and scored a sweet parking spot right in front. However, this was after I told Jen she should just park at the far lot since it looked packed. Jen, one. Mike, zero. We walked around and saw that the prices for tours of the castle were about thirty some odd dollars a piece and the next tour wasn't for a while and decided it would have killed our whole day and save the money. I think three times is a charm and the next time we drive by it will be the time we actually pursue the castle tour.

A couple miles north on Highway 1 was a turn off for Elephant Seal Beach. Judging by the amount of cars that were pulled off the road we made a point to check it out. Turns out it is named Elephant Seal Beach for good reason, as there were easily three or four dozen elephant seals lounging around and fighting/playing in the waters. The nice pull off detour was cool for some good pic’s and a way to get out of the car for a bit. The wind however, had different opinions on us hanging around. It became very cold quickly as the wind picked up and we had no jackets on, since it as warm not fifteen minutes prior. Jen and I headed back to the car to make our move towards Big Sur.

Big Sur is crazy beautiful. With scenery that spans gorgeous beaches and monstrous cliffs on one side and giant redwoods and forest on the other. Our original plan was to camp in one of the 4 or 5 campsites along the Big Sur stretch of highway but, Hippies have a way of ruining normal people’s day. They were everywhere. They were spotted trying to hitchhike on the side of the road and others were just walking on open highway like it was the Grand Canyon (this was before we had even gotten to the nice scenery around Big Sur, so there was no reason to be walking the opposite direction on the highway.) The hippies were from all walks of life too. There were hippies of the natural breed with their dred-locks and dirty earth toned clothing. There was also the trendy-I-may-smell-but-still-make-a-good-living-and-like-the-outdoors-in-my-Prius type of hippies. The hippies had conquered Big Sur and took up all of the campsites. Of the over 250 state campsites, the only ones we could find open were at a beach campsite, that sounded very nice at first. We pulled off the road to check it out and saw that it was $35. Bummer. You also have to hike in with your gear for a little under a mile. Double bummer. The campsites were also nowhere near the beach. Triple bummer. The grounds were also really rocky and hard with switch grass. Quadruple bummer. All bummed out we had located a coupon for a hotel room for five bucks cheaper. The hotel was in Gilroy, the garlic capitol of the world. It was within an hour or so drive and a shower and bed at a price cheaper than hike in camping sounded like a good idea.

Gilroy, CA

The Garlic Farm Inn. I really wish we had remembered to take a picture of this place because I'm not sure if my description will do it justice. First off, the coupon we found said they had free wifi. Bogus. Secondly, the hotel rooms sit on top of a mini mart/trucker lounge/public restroom. All the rooms were on the second floor. Earlier when we called the hotel to make a reservation a man answered the phone and between sighs told me that had a lot of rooms. I think he just didn't want to do any more work than he had to. We had parked the car and went to the front desk, aka the checkout counter of the mini mart. The place was so surreal, like it was out of a movie, but sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. The man working the counter had a name tag that read Janas. Janas was the man that I had spoken to earlier and he was just as entertaining in person. In his home country of wherever, he would probably be farming or doing something productive but here in America, he is working at a mini mart/hotel room/deli/ice cream shop/truck stop and looks like he is in purgatory. He still sighed between sentences and truly looks as if he doesn't give a shit about anything. He rang us up and gave us our key to room 206. He then handed us the remote control to the television. Jen and I just looked at each other in disbelief that this was all really happening. It most definitely was. We arrived at the room and tried a couple different times to get the lock on the door to work. The handle was a bit janky and you had to hold it upright before you slid the card in and out.

The room was standard old motel room decor. It had the dated furniture and art on the walls that looks like the kind you buy at the swap meet or flea market and pay something like twenty dollars for three pieces of matching artwork. The bathroom seemed like it had no door on it, until we noticed the hideaway pocket door that was cleverly painted to look like the wall it was part of. The tile on the floor was comprised of about three different patterns of tile. The toilet paper holder was in non-functioning order. The toilet and shower both worked and the bed was not too bad. All in all it could have been better but, it was definitely nice to crash in a bed after 3 days of sleeping on the ground.