← PreviousMeeting the director of The Room in Santa Barbara: an unexpected anecdoteWe started the next day with brunch in Morro Bay. Well, we'd gone out for a simple coffee, but we'd fallen into a trap. We thought we could sit down and just have a mocha, but we'd barely sat down before the waiter poured us black coffee in mugs and handed us the brunch menu. We looked at each other and said, why not. That'll keep us going until 4 pm, we thought. When the plates arrived, we immediately understood we wouldn't need to eat again before evening. We had two enormous portions of scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes.
It was all delicious and we came out stuffed. We went to burn it off hiking the nearby trails. The landscape was reminiscent of Breaking Bad, in the episodes where Walter White holes up with Jesse in the desert to cook. We climbed under the watchful eye of eagles circling overhead. We went up to the top of Cerro Cabrillo for an overview of the valley. We took a little break before heading back down. We went very slowly because the rock was really slippery. Despite all our precautions, Cassandre fell and banged her arm hard against a rock. More fright than harm, but a big bump and scrapes galore. We sped up our descent to treat the injury at the car.
The next hike promised to be less difficult. We walked the Bluff Trail in Montaña de Oro State Park. The path followed the coast along the clifftop and the views were truly stunning. We were even lucky enough to see a bunch of little squirrels pop out of their burrows. A few eagles circled the area on the lookout for easy prey. The wind made it all pleasant, cooling the afternoon.
We then went to our hotel, and after a workout we went for dinner at a pub. It was typically American, or at least our idea of it, if there is such a thing as typically American. A few people sitting at the bar were chatting without knowing each other, as we'd seen in so many places in the English-speaking world. The interior was well kept, with a bit of a mountain-chalet feel. We ate an excellent burger with impeccable service and racked our brains yet again over how much of a tip was acceptable.
On the morning of 16 February, we set off on the legendary Highway 1 linking Los Angeles and San Francisco. It's no longer the main route between the two, but it remains very popular with tourists thanks to the breathtaking scenery on certain stretches. Our first stop was at the foot of an elephant seal colony in San Simeon. The animals made dinosaur noises and weren't very pretty to look at, but that didn't stop us being fascinated by the spectacle. They moved by dragging themselves along, and the males constantly tried to assert their dominance.
We witnessed several fights settled with fairly violent bites. We continued on our way only to find that the road was closed for thirty kilometres and we had to take a detour. We were furious, because it meant going back fifty kilometres, but above all because it hadn't been signposted anywhere beforehand. What kind of civilised country doesn't warn you in advance when the only road is closed?
This three-hour detour cost us a good part of the day, and we reached the most beautiful coastal section of the highway just before sunset. Our annoyance vanished instantly. The sky had turned orange and the sunlight was reflected intensely in the water. We drove along the sea, stopping regularly. We crossed Bixby Bridge and stopped. It was as beautiful as the descriptions. Its distinctive arched architecture gave it an extremely cinematic look, accentuated by the surrounding cliffs. So we weren't surprised to learn that it appears in several films and even in the video game GTA San Andreas. Sitting at the edge of the drop, our eyes on an incredible sunset in breathtaking surroundings, we truly realised how lucky we were to experience all these moments.
On the trail