OUR FAMILY HOLIDAYS
0276 Californian Holiday - Pacific Highway
From San Francisco we took the Pacific highway down to Los Angeles. As with everything in the States, it was two days long. It was also very twisting, going down close to sea level one minute then up onto high cliffs and back again. It was very scenic, as it was supposed to be. But once more to us it seemed rather too long.
En route we went to Monterey, where we saw the cannery made famous by Steinbeck, and had lunch, as well as seeing the seals which are a feature of the harbour there. From there we went to Carmel, although -- it being a very snooty place -- we only managed to drive through the outskirts. Finally on that part of coast, we went to Big Sur, where the waves spectacularly pounded the rocky shore.
We then went down to San Luis Obispo where we stayed the night. We saw the Hurst mansion on the hill, but were not given the opportunity to look around it - which was rather a waste when we had travelled so far along the road. By San Luis Obispo, though, Pat was feeling very grotty with flu. So we didn't do anything there. The next day was split up by a visit to Santa Barbara and its church before we finally arrived in Los Angeles. But, by the time we arrived at Los Angeles, I too had the flu, though Pat was getting over it. Accordingly the following day -- when she and the children went down to San Diego and Tijuana -- I was stuck in my bedroom.
They were not impressed with Tijuana but liked San Diego.
By that midday, however, I felt a bit better once more. So I got up, and decided to go out of the back entrance to the hotel into the shopping street there. I was about halfway along the shopping street when it suddenly dawned on me that I was the only white face on the street. The hotel was on the edge of the Mexican quarter and this was the main Mexican shopping street. There literally wasn't any other white face there. Everyone was Mexican, and not a few of them were looking at me. It was quite scary and I scampered back to my hotel room.
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