We have moved from Napa to Salinas. It was an easy 120 mile trip. Salinas is just a few miles from Monterey and has good access to highway 101 and the traffic is much friendlier. There is much reference in this area to it’s famous author: John Steinbeck. Of course, his books were on my required reading in high school. I’m glad it was. They were impressionable and I still remember.
Yesterday, I got on Google Earth and plotted a route that would take us into a remote and potentially a spectacular viewing of the Los Padres National Forest. On Google, it was a light white color road which indicated hard surface road and it started from highway 101 (“B” on map) and routed its way to the PCH, highway 1 (“D” on map). It was about 70 miles of back country remote traveling. It looked good on paper.
We took the 200 mile excursion today. I would rate it a 10, it was truly an awesome day. We both said that this was the best. This is going to be a long post because the only way to describe our excursion is by pictures. We want to keep these pictures for memory of this trip, so bear with us.
Our first stop was Mission San Antonio de Padua (“C” on the map). Located on eighty acres on what was once the Hearst Ranch. It was one of the original California missions of the late 1700’s and is the least visited. It is located in the desolate area of Hunter-Liggett next to an active Army Training Post. The staff went out of their way to give us a great tour. We were the only visitors at the time.
Our next excursion was the trip across the Los Padres Mountain Range (“C” to “D” on the map). It was a good thing that the road was hard top or else I would have turned around. The road was tricky with many hair pin turns and switch-backs. We were in the middle of no-where and no other people around, we drove for at lease 50 miles without seeing anyone and the road was semi-drivable. Many mud slides and down limbs. It took us more than two hours but we made it with a beautiful ocean in our view. It definitely was our best adventure.
Once we finally reach PCH, the road widen out and we started to encounter traffic. Our direction now was toward Monterey, but we would have to travel through Big Sur and Carmel first. The rugged coast-line was definitely memorable.
