Day Two: Big Sur, a small mechanical issue, and new friends
Sue slept in, having been awakened during the night; I had breakfast at the coffee shop next door, Tidal, and read and watched football (love that YouTube TV!). We rolled out around 9:30, heading down Route 1.
The great views start just past Carmel. We decided not to pull into Point Lobos State Park, although that must be a spectacular place. We once again stopped at just about every pullout.
The landscape here is very different: very green hills (the Carmel Valley itself is spectacularly verdant) that roll down right to the water. As the coast got rockier and dominated by headlands, the road twists in and out and up and down.
We stopped for lots of pictures at Bixby Bridge…
and were soon in Big Sue proper among the redwoods.
We stopped to get oriented at Big Sue Station (a joint project of the forest service, state parks, and a local conservancy) and stocked up on reading about the region. The very nice man behind the desk obviously loved the region, and was full of good advice. He confirmed what we’d heard before: the road was closed by a huge landslip at the southern edge of Big Sur. We decided to drive down another twenty miles or so, doing some beach walks, then return to a park for a walk among the redwoods.
Pfeiffer Beach is located down a steep, rutted, one-lane road. At the bottom we encountered two young women standing in the road talking to a ranger across what seemed to be a rushing stream. They wanted a lift across because their car was parked up the road, but soon learned that they would be towed and headed back. The ranger said the road was very passable, so we plunged through the water, which was probably ten inches deep. There were lots of cars on the other side, so we figured we were ok. Here is the stream as it neared the water.
The beach itself is marked by two huge rock castles offshore.
–and by some remarkable purple sand!
We did a long walk as the tide came in, ending at a small feeder canyon.
Back at the car, it started up fine and we were soon in front of the stream. I was afraid of stalling, so i went in pretty hard, and when we came out, we heard a terrible noise. Sue at first didn’t see anything under the car, but a ways up the road we stopped again and she found that the plastic protective panel under the front end had come loose and was dragging. We couldn’t stop on the one-lane road, so we drove screeching and wailing back to Big Sur Station.
Breaking down in Big Sur isn’t advisable: there is absolutely no cell service. The man at the ranger station was the soul of solicitude, though. We used his phone to call Thrifty. They weren’t very helpful, telling me we had to wait for a tow back to San Jose, two hours away! Several more calls brought little more information: the claimed that the tow truck was not authorized to drop us at Monterey, where there were rental cars. Many fellow travelers were very sympathetic and offered lots of help.
Sue got talking to one group of people about our age, and they offered to share some bread and cheese–Sue hadn’t eaten breakfast and was famished. These three people were absolutely memorable. Ricardo Sternberg and his wife Chris from Toronto, and Greg Keller from Bozeman. Ricardo was an emeritus professor of Brazilian lit at Toronto, Greg an emeritus professor of English professor at Montana State. Chris was a midwife. We were soon deep in conversation as we discovered mutual friends and interests. Ricardo and Chris come to Monterey for two months every winter, renting an apartment, and Greg was visiting for a few days.
It turned out that we still had a long wait for the truck, and they promised to check back in with us after they had driven further down the coast. After a couple more frustrating calls, we decided to give the car back to the tow truck driver and make our way, either on the twice a day bus, or with our new friends, back to Monterey.
We were both in surprisingly good moods: despite the mishap, we had had a lovely day in a lovely place and had met some lovely people–not just our new friends, but the gentleman behind the desk, who continued to be unbelievably helpful.
Our friends came back just before the tow truck, and they graciously agreed to drive us to Monterey Airport. The driver said there was no real damage, just the replacement of the underbody panel. And we trusted him to return the car to Thrifty. So off we went, packed into their Subaru Forester. On the way back, Sue gave them all the Burma pitch…we’ll see!
Finding a car was a bit trickier than anticipated: most of the six agencies had no cars, but we finally found a white Chevy Malibu at National. The car rental will probably cost double what I had anticipated–before we go to war with Thrifty over the damages!
We had a therapeutic glass of wine–a third of a bottle of 2014 Chateau Montalena Cab for 20 bucks!–and booked a table at a fish restaurant, PassionFish, that our friends had recommended highly.
We had a wonderful meal at a terrific restaurant. The wine list is one of the best I’ve seen, with great selections from every region, and at remarkable prices: 50-80% above retail. I put myself in the hands of our server, and ended up with a Ceritas Trout Gulch Chardonnay, which was remarkable enough to get me on their list and buy a sampler case!