Home Sweet Home in Hayward, CA

Friday we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Simeon to San Francisco.

This post is a bit delayed (should be dated 6/19/09).

Beautiful. Stunning. Curvy.



Five minutes up the road we stopped at a sign that said "View Elephant Seals". We parked and noticed a few seal heads sticking up out of the water far into the distance. There were louder barking sounds coming from the right of the parking lot so we followed our ears, though a gate and along a bluff. There, 15 feet below us, were a pod of Elephant seals in all their stinky amusing glory. They were enormous.



The seals would heave themselves out of the water, wiggle along for a few feet, then collapse. Then they'd wiggle a few more feet, then collapse. If they accidently knocked into another seal, they argued by lifting their heads way back and barking/burping into each other's faces. It was extremely entertaining and not at all how I expected to spend my first hour "on the road" that morning. A second pod was further down the path, as were several rabbits and some birds. I'm not sure if it was because we weren't expecting this sight, or if it was because it was entirely cool, but I do believe the Elephant Seals are the highlight of the trip.



The curvy beautiful coast continued north through fog layered mountain and sea views. We stopped at a bakery ran by hippies and ate some lovely quiche at a picnic table in the sun. An old man gave me the code to life. He wrote on a piece of paper "A-Z" and "0-9" and told me that with this code you can write your life story. I liked the old bald hippie. The cookie I carried from the store and ate later that day was good enough to make me want to make a special trip back to their hippie garden.



There were some wind surfers in wet suits at one of the beaches, and a surfer dude selling weird two-seeded cherries at another beach. A light house was another stop. We saw more seals there, but nothing compared to the Elephant seal beach.



At 11am I finally received the message from my company as to what address I would be calling home for the next 3+months. A thought this was way too stressful and proclaimed the life of contracting would not sit well with her- she likes a plan. My philosophy is that my company is responsible for finding me a place to sleep- it's not something I worry about. If it's unsafe or gross, I'll send them pictures. That's only happened once in the 3 years I've been traveling! We popped the address in Garmin and continued up the road and then over east to San Francisco.

A helped me unload my car- I told her she could just sit with the car and I'd run the loads up the 3 flights of steps but she's way too nice and wanted to carry as well. It took 11 trips (5 each, and one box that both of us carried). We found target and spent $150 on soap, groceries and other stuff necessary to make a house livable (Soap: dishwasher soap, laundry detergent, hand soap, dish soap for hand washing pots, shampoo/conditioner, 409 and clorex wipes...we are a very clean nation!)

Then we found my new sushi place and had a fabulous dinner. I will be visiting this sushi restaurant often- the BBQ eel was spectacular and the dynamite rainbow row had great spice.

I'm sure I'll be sharing pictures of the actual city of San Francisco in a later post. We do plan on a quick trip tomorrow, but it's more of a scouting trip for me. I'll do the city justice and devote a few weekends to just being a photo-bug. And good news! My brother is selling me his old camera- I'm upgrading from the point-and-shoot that I've taken all my blog pictures with! We shall compare the professional camera to the point-and-shoot and decide if it's worth it to lug it around on my adventures.



Adam- I'll devote a post to your questions as well. Give me a few days and then check back!