Day 5 - Santa Barbara to San Jose

Today I have three new reasons for wanting to move to California and they are as follows:

Last night I stayed with Joan and John in Santa Barbara. Joan has written a book about monarch butterflies (the black and orange ones) and John is a Vietnam war veteran (as well as many other things, I'm sure!) Apparently that's more common than I realised but it still surprised me. I guess I'll just add that to my list of things I'd only seen in movies but are real in America.

Joan has a really cool garden with loads of fruit trees and these Hawaiian flowers:

After leaving them I embarked upon the drive I've most been looking forward to - Highway 1 including Big Sur. At first I thought I could get away with taking pictures from the car like this:

But as soon as the ocean came into view I couldn't help but stop every few hundred yards and get out to photograph what is some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen. Fortunately Highway 1 is well prepared for this and every so often there is a little space for cars to pull into. One thing is certain, you wouldn't want to be going along this road in anything like a hurry!

My rental car is much fancier than the one I paid for so I was able to plug in my iPod and listen to BBC Radio 4 podcasts, thus combining my love of the ocean with my love of British comedy. I even heard a great joke:

A man is driving along a country road (can you see already why I like this joke?) when he accidentally runs over a cockerel. Feeling awful, he drives up to the farm and apologises profusely to the farmer, offering to replace the cockerel.

The farmer looks him up and down, spits out his tobacco and says "Suit yourself, the hens are out the back"

I'll tell you this for nothing:  laughing your head off, driving AND taking pictures through your windscreen is not a good look. When I saw a police car come towards me, do a crazy U-turn and pull in in front of me with his lights flashing I did wonder if I'd pushed my luck too far (have I mentioned that if I don't see a speed limit sign for more than a mile or so I randomly pick which speed I think that road should be?) As it happens it was the truck in front of me loaded with what looked like the innards of a torpedo that was being pulled over. Unfortunately I don't know how that story ends so let's say it was a shoot out and the good guy won.





I've decided to go out of my way to talk to everyone I see on my trip, (especially if they are alone) and then take their picture. In today's gallery we have Dag from Norway who had a lovely bushy moustache and Scott and Melissa from Chicago who had walked (!) to where I met them so I gave them a lift back to their car.

Tonight I'm sleeping in a bed with camouflage covers so I'm not drinking any water in case I need to get up in the night to wee and then can't find my bed again!