Santa Cruz was her usual beautiful self. When I imagine heading north along California's highways and byways I always think of the little roads. Like Hwy 126 that takes a pastoral jog through Santa Paula before linking up with the 101 in Ventura. Orange groves and grapevines. Enormous billowy pomegranate trees heavy with their hard red fruit.
Eventually I'll wind over to Hwy 1 and begin to snake along the coast. It's the slowest way up north, but the most dramatic. I'll take drama over speed any day. This time I stopped to have lunch with Dorothy in Cambria before continuing my trek north.
Eventually I made it to Santa Cruz and the little cottage of an old friend. Plenty of roads high up in the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains to meander through.
Yesterday I headed back home. South along a couple of small roads then onto the main corridor leading into LA. I'm the biggest fan of Hwy 198. An hours drive connecting the 101 to Interstate 5. You might see 10 cars the entire time.
This is a beautiful forlorn landscape.
The mind likes to rest on roads like this. Mine does anyway.
Having a passenger along would be a distraction. Chatty types can always be stowed in the trunk for this stretch.
More to see in the Central Valley with its mile after mile of bright fields.
No matter how sweet the trip it's always good to come home to my girl LA, with all of her gritty beauty. Makes a heart glad to see downtown on the horizon.
welcome home (hope those horrible fires don’t affect you!)
love.
Well thank goodness you are back. I will be there in approximately 40 hours. Just enough time for you to fix up a desk for me in the art room, get out the martini making supplies, and get my bed linens washed, ironed, and put on the bed. Tell those cats to get their faces washed and get ready to have lots of kissing and paw massages. I would like to have some of that apple pear crisp for dessert on my first night and if it’s not too much trouble could you be sure and have a cheese and guava empanada for breakfast on the first day… on second thought we’ll just go get it because I will have to have a giant cafe con leche too. Oh and I will be happy to change your water cooler bottle as soon as I get there. Hey do you think you can arrange some spanish lessons? Don’t forget about the 25 things on my “running list of things to do the next time I am in LA”. Vacation? fugetaboutit! we’ve got things to do, places to go, food to eat, art to make, movies to see. you only thought teaching school was exhausting. when I get through with you, you will be begging to go back to work! aren’t you glad you asked me to come out? you did ask me didn’t you?
Great to have you back – I read your blog almost every day and missed it when you were away talking to the redwoods.
Long, solo road trips that allow you to think a thought all the way through…bliss. I am glad you are back. I always miss reading your blog when you are gone.
Fabulous!! I heart road trips in the biggest way. People often ask us if we don’t miss living on a Caribbean island…and although it was beautiful, I couldn’t WAIT to get in a car and just DRIVE and DRIVE for miles and miles…and miles on end. (When you live for road trips, it can feel suffocating to be living within the confines of a 3-miles-wide x 13-miles-long rock in the middle of the ocean.) And solo road trips? The BEST! 🙂 I love my sweetie, but oh, what freedom I felt on those two road trips I took last year…the first to Portland and I meandered through Humboldt County on the way back…the second to Vegas and back (LOVE the Mojave…I know it’s kinda ugly, but it pulls to me). I’m always shocked at women (and I know several in this town) who won’t even drive ON A FREEWAY. And don’t even get me started on blue highways and back roads…(seeing as how I’ve already hijacked your comments)… 😉
Those long empty stretches call you from the almost forgotten days of growing up in the midwest – all those empty fields in the winter when you can see forever. I love those stretches of road also and that’s the way we always go up north. We just look and look and fill all of our empty spaces with the scenery.
LA welcomes you home. So does the cat posse as do we, your faithful blogistas.
What a lovely trip! I love the central valley…Capitola, spent time there and all around Santa Maria.
Your photos capture the lazy, beautiful drive…even driving into LA, great shot!!
I’ll be posting some graffiti and spray painting I saw in Spain and thought of YOU!
Did you drive through Santa Maria, Pismo
Lompoc?
My mom lives in Lompoc, I did for awhile.
Glad to see you had a great time.
Thank you
i have only done that trip a couple times (from sf to la) and it is the oddest mixture of landscapes around; though I have never taken the 1. Yeah Santa Cruz rules!
oh what beautiful roads…
I would be the chatty one stowed in the trunk – for sure – and understandably so…
un der stand a bly so – its the a between the d and the b – we are working on 6th grade spelling – with a Mom challenged therein…
oh my heart smiles here at the dispatch for sure…
now – can I come out of the trunk M.A.?
xox – eb.