Country roads, city streets

Petaluma, CA – Our new location is north of San Fran-cisco, at the doorstep of Sonoma wine coun-try. The overcast, cool wea-ther continues. We got on our way in good time this morning, aiming once again for Highway 1 along the Pacific Coast.  Once again, we passed through Castroville, discovering from our guidebook that, back in 1947 a relatively unknown personality by the name of Marilyn Monroe was chosen as Miss Artichoke for that town’s annual festival!

More vast fields of artichokes, strawberries, lettuce and other crops spread out on either side of the highway, and we passed signs indicating that later in the year there would also be crops of pumpkins that you could pick yourself closer to Hallowe’en.

Fog and clouds rolled in off the ocean as we continued northward, veiling the rocks and breakers in mist and curling around the tall Monterey pines ahead of us.  Only in a few places did the road twist and turn around bluffs and mountains at the edge of the water; the rest of the time, we passed through farmland and small forests.  Peaceful scenes of grazing cows and green fields looked almost like Canadian farms in many places.

Every now and then there was a turnout or a small parking lot next to a sandy beach, but never with enough lead time for us to a) determine whether there was room to get in, turn around and get out again and b) slow down and actually make the turn.  We were already past a couple of nice spots before we could really see that we could have stopped!

Despite the wind, fog and cool temperatures, there were others who were enjoying the beach and the surf, even going so far as to suit up in rubber and go out with a surfboard in a few cases. 

Santa Cruz showed up much sooner than I expected – a nice town with gardens and shopping centres along the main drag, as well as some interesting features as described in our guidebook.  A fairground in the town boasts one of the last roller coasters with the original 1900s wooden support structure, and a carrousel with hand-carved wooden horses of a similar vintage.  There’s also a surfing museum with old surfboards made of redwood! If we had all the time in the world, we would stop to see all these fascinating oddities, but some we just have to leave behind.

We had decided to turn off for lunch at the very next opportunity, when we found our-selves suddenly in the outskirts of San Fran-cisco, and then in full urban traffic mode.  It was surprising how quickly the change from country to city occurred!  So on we went, past rows of brightly painted houses, up and down the typically hilly landscape, past streetcars, commuters and buses and then, up ahead, emerging from the clouds, we spotted the spans of the Golden Gate Bridge!

Lunch had to wait. It was great to see the San Francisco skyline from the bridge, and the island of Alcatraz in the bay. Soon enough, we were settled at our site on the other side of the city, lunch eaten and ready to plan another day of visiting.