The Smokies from near Taig an Drama Pacific Coast Road Trip!
The Plan

Recently, while watching the History Channel “Modern Marvels”, they did a piece on the Pacific Coast Highway from Malibu, CA, up through Washington State. They gave special attention to the many bridges along Hwy 101 in Washington and Oregon and CA1 in California.

I have traveled portions of CA1 from about Mendocino, CA, south to LA. With the many views of the coast and Pacific and the elegant bridges, I will return every chance I get.

The next day I called Junior Green, my old childhood friend from Jackson, TN, (now living in Boynton Beach, FL) and one-time college roomie and asked him if he would be interested in a road trip from Seattle, WA, to San Diego, CA, the entire length of the PCH and a total of 1,872 miles in a Convertible Mustang. At first he was skeptical but a couple of days later he called back and said “When do you want to go?” His wife, Miss Vickie, had to approve the time as she made it clear that there was no way Junior would stray far from the house before the end of hurricane season. From that point, it was just a matter of details.

The Details

  1. We will make the trip in a Convertible Mustang. Junior pointed out that we could certainly find cheaper wheels (the drop-off fee in San Diego is more than the total daily rate for the 13 day trip!) Well, I had owned a convertible Mustang in the early 70s and I now own one again just like my original (see 66 Mustang) and I had conceived this trip as a Mustang trip. Junior gave in.
  2. Junior wants to go through Vancouver, Canada, which I readily agreed to. Additionally, I have enjoyed many ferry crossings in my travels so I routed our return via Vancouver Island which requires two ferry crossings (about 90 minutes each) - first from Tsawwassen, BC, Ca, across the Strait of Georgia to Swartz Bay, Ca, a 40 mile drive across Vancouver Island and then across the Salish Sea (which leads into Puget Sound) from James Bay, Ca, landing back in the good old US of A at Port Angeles, WA.
  3. I want to drive to Cape Flattery, which is the farthest northwest point in the continental US. I visited the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse on my visit to Maine in 2016, which is the most easterly point in he continental US. Junior has been to the most southerly at Key West, FL (that’s another trip for me.)
  4. Junior’s granddaughter is a big fan of the Twilight movies so we will overnight in Forks, WA, the scene of much of the filming. We hope to eat at Sully’s Burgers where they sell a “Bella Burger” with a side of fangs.
  5. Traveling south from Forks we will visit as many of the lighthouses as we have time for and take pictures of the many bridges that we cross.
  6. We will have a meal with Junior’s niece in San Francisco. We will stay an extra night there to catch more of the city (Haight Ashbury, Lombard St., the Wharf, etc.)
  7. A stop by the SpaceX Launch Complex at Vandenburg AFB. Unfortunately, the next scheduled launch date for SpaceX is Dec 4. And, visitors to Vandenburg AFB must be sponsored by permanent base personnel. So it will probably just be a drive by.
  8. In LA we will take a side trip to the Mt Wilson Observatory and SpaceX Headquarters. And possibly a harrowing drive on Dead Man’s Curve. (Back in the mid 80s, I had a two week training trip in LA that spanned the Easter holiday. My compatriot and I were out driving on Sunday and decided to visit the Wilson Observatory. After a stomach churning ride up the winding switchback road, we arrived at the gate. It was closed, locked and the sign indicated that it was open 364 days of the year, closed only on Easter.)
  9. We were hoping for a quick trip from San Diego to Tijuana. Unfortunately, the rental car company won’t allow it! Insurance or some such.
  10. And, of course, we plan to eat well. We will hit as many Triple D (that’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) places as we can. And a stop at the Firestone Grill in San Luis Obispo for what is billed as the best Tri Tip Sandwich in Cali, if not the world!
  11. And we will leave the middle of October, the end of the Florida hurricane season.

The Trip

The flights are booked, the rooms reserved and the Mustang wrangled. Now all that’s left is the trip - just two men and one pony on a long coastal ride (apologies to John Denver, wherever he may be). Fortunately, the Trip is all downhill!

Epilogue

I’ve been home for almost a week now and it is time to look back on my experience.This trip was like no other I have undertaken before. The two day, 500 mile trip up the Boot of Italy from Catania, Sicily, to Rome in 2018 was maybe a good warm up. However, this was truly a Road Trip. Of the 12 days on the road, we stayed in the same place only twice - San Francisco and San Diego (oddly, the only two cities that start with “San”). We were typically on the road by 7:00-7:30 am and not at our next stop before 5:00 pm.

Our trip from SeaTac Airport, Seatle, WA, though Canada, ending somewhere southwest of San Diego included the following:



  1. We flew 5000± miles (+ for Jr and - for me) just to get there and back.
  2. We drove a total of 2341 miles.
  3. We stayed 12 nights in 10 different motels in 10 different towns.
  4. We crossed 16 major bridges and countless smaller ones.
  5. We saw 13 lighthouses.
  6. We ate 37 meals at 32 different restaurants (we ate breakfast 4 time at McDonald's, though all different, and twice at the same restaurant in San Diego)
  7. We ate at two Triple D restaurants - the Peaceful Restaurant in Surrey, Canada, and the Blue Water Restaurant in San Diego.
  8. We consumed a half pound of Tic-Tacs (mostly by Jr).
  9. I took over 1200 photographs and Jr took over 1700.

As many of you know, I am intrigued by the universal connections that intertwine with our lives. So when I mentioned John Denver above in The Trip, little did I anticipate that I would stumble across his monument in our travels. Some would call it serendipity. I personally think that there is more than chance involved.

So what have I learned from this trip? First, since the last time I drove the cliff section of   CA1 south of Monterey (back in the late 80s), my acrophobia has increased by several orders of magnitude. And the cliffs in northern Cali are almost three times taller than the southern leg. There were several times when Jr was driving and I looked down from the passenger side door and saw air, nothing but air, for damn near ever. I was far from my happy place.

I learned that Mustangs, at least on the left coast, outnumber Camaros by a factor of at least 20:1, probably quite higher. In northern Cali, it was mostly silver Mustangs, while in the middle of the state we saw more white Mustangs. In southern Cali, black seemed to dominate. Yeah, this is kind of a silly thing to pay attention to, but it became almost an obsession to be the first to point out a passing Stang.

I learned that paying attention to the speedometer on the winding road on the Makah Indian Reservation south of Cape Flattery is apparently more important than staying on the road.

I learned that spending 12 days in a car with a friend, even a long time good friend, can be both trying and rewarding.

Would I do it again? Due to the fact that I have visited the northwest and traveled CA1 from Mendicino to LA, I doubt I will repeat any part of this trip. I have investigated a couple of other road trips - one from the Badlands National Park to Yellowstone and Grand Teton (a 750 mi. trip) and another from Denver through Grand Canyon to Vegas (a 950 mi. trip). Then there is the New England area, what I might call the Revolutionary Trail. As I get older, the physical stress makes the effort more difficult. But then, as I get older, the opportunity to take such a trek diminishes. And there are so many places yet to see! Time will tell.
To Day 1