Photo and text: Christer Lundem
August 13: A road trip
We decide to make the journey to Monterey as a proper road trip. It means in reality to avoid highways and find a bit of the old California. The road we will travel on is Highway 1. We start on Highway 101 through Santa Barbara, head north on Highway 1 to Monterey. The landscape is dazzling beautiful, large parts of the road runs along the Pacific Ocean, and the salty sea air makes us feel refreshed. Along the itinerary we see surfers, campers, hippies, motorcycles and some single bikers with way to good patience. We are now in the California wilderness. In the next two hours we haven´t even had mobile connection. Making cautious city folks like us a bit nervous. The roads wind their way around small mountains and it is just as nice as we would imagine them to be. The Mustang rumbles satisfied, it is as though it recognizes that we embrace the American car culture to the fullest.
The trip is estimated to six hours, so we think we have plenty of time. After driving for six hours and reached The Big Sur, it starts to get dark and cold air bites. In fact it is so cold that convertible top must up, and the heater switched on. The roads are not illuminated, and the cozy roadtrip has degenerated into a "death race" between us and vehicles with dim or no lighting. Totally exhausted, at eleven o'clock at night, when we find a hotel just north of Monterey. This is a shack that most closely resemble an abandoned psychiatric hospital. The hotel room is a wall-to-wall lined cell. Having stepped on something that certainly is a carpet full of urine, we go to bed in desperation with our clothes on.
Tomorrow we will sleep in a good hotel, whatever the costs: Champagne 24 houres non stop.
The trip is estimated to six hours, so we think we have plenty of time. After driving for six hours and reached The Big Sur, it starts to get dark and cold air bites. In fact it is so cold that convertible top must up, and the heater switched on. The roads are not illuminated, and the cozy roadtrip has degenerated into a "death race" between us and vehicles with dim or no lighting. Totally exhausted, at eleven o'clock at night, when we find a hotel just north of Monterey. This is a shack that most closely resemble an abandoned psychiatric hospital. The hotel room is a wall-to-wall lined cell. Having stepped on something that certainly is a carpet full of urine, we go to bed in desperation with our clothes on.
Tomorrow we will sleep in a good hotel, whatever the costs: Champagne 24 houres non stop.
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