Lil' Queeny Shakedown - Central Pacific Coast Highway

Explorer II

Apr 18, 2018

10. Nacimiento Road (Paso to Big Sur).

Now where were we? Oh yes! Paso Robles. Me and DW was on a campout in the mountains, where we'd rented one of them RV spots for 55 bucks a day, buy your gas along the way, take a rabbit's foot and leave a pint of blood for a deposit.... pay no attention to the guitar there (CW lyrics - kinda).

At one point along the pre-planning, I'd discovered this route on the CalTras web site regarding a southern route in for the Big Sur portion of the Pacific Coast Highway - instead of having to both enter and exit from up north near Carmel (pronounced Car-Mel).

Another time, for no apparent reason, it showed up on my Google Maps AP as a blue route indicating "alternative routing", like other certain routes pop up on the national map for various other non-related to us, things. I can think of two previous similar situations, but in my age-induced memory-reduced (AIMR) condition, I just can't remember what they WERE! That's kind of liberating!

But what I noticed on both the Google Maps Blue line, and the CalTrans Red line, were the zig-zags. Kind of like Black Bear Road - Z's and W's all strung together.

There are warnings. Unfortunately they are just warnings, not laws. As in "30' maximum length and no trailers" warnings. What is it about people, that will force this warning to someday become a law? Well - you know people!

And we knew Lil' Queeny stayed well within the length of our truck bed plus bumper. Back ago, in New Hampshire, we already knew the truck's full length, including bikes on the back rack, were just FINE to drive the road to the top of Mount Washington. Why? Because of wheel base. THEIR rules were some such foot and some such inches. Our wheel-base was within 1/4" of the maximum, and the Ranger pulled a tape measure to prove it, before he passed over our narrative CD and wished us well, muttering something about Tourons.

That was in '07.

So we had no fears about this one. Just gotta watch those hanging branches. Even the camper width is old school (7'4" as opposed to many these days at 8.5'). I can even see behind with the mirrors folded! What a difference down-sizing makes (Mel Gibson screaming "Freedom" enters - stage right)!

Now we were mainly focused on driving just as much of Highway 1 as possible: up hills, down dells, and through cities. And those who know the route understand what that means in the Bay area, but we'll get to that. Today it was about getting off Highway 101 and back onto 1. Off we went with clean clothes, food, water, a new battery.

First stop? The next Mission along the way. This one was San Antonia De Padua. Not only had I never heard about it, I couldn't even pronounce it.

We didn't even know if it was open to the public, until we got right on it. It's kind of off the beaten path, next door to (or on the property of) the Fort Hunter Liggett Army Base.

What a nice surprise. Let's check it out.

We entered the office/entry door and paused to let our eyes adjust. But eyes wouldn't focus. Instead, our five senses were bombarded by noises! In my overwhelmed-senses stupor (I don't know how long we stood there), reality slowly came back into focus.

My fact oriented brain trying to make sense of this situation started laying out an outline.

We were Number 2 in line
Number 1 in Line was a Gentleman obtaining Road Directions from the Worker Lady - for a long time
The Worker Lady was explaining Road Directions - for a long time
The Worker Lady was answering phone calls
The Worker Lady was glancing nervously at others in the room
Others in the room included Two Women
Others in the room included Four Children
Others in the room were in extremely loud vocal discussion about their intended purchases
The Front Office was the Souvenir Shop with Historic Trinkets from China
The Adjacent Room had activity by adults and children in and out and back again

As I said, I don't know how long we stood there, but it felt like an eternity. I looked at DW. DW looked at me. I said, "We've seen Missions". DW said, "yeah". We both said, "it sure was quiet in the truck". Then together we both said, "yeah".

So back on the road we went, and we drove through beautiful (quiet) country. Narrow, black topped roads wound around ancient trees and grassy fields. What a gorgeous drive. We didn't get any pictures. We just enjoyed the drive. Then it started up and I remembered my responsibility to you all.

But that's all you get - for now. It was just too awesome to get distracted.

On the east side there were indeed switchbacks, and wind-ies, and passing others (including another TC and a small Class A and C or two), all of which were bigger than Lil' Queeny, and would require more of a share of the road than would we, or than would - for example - a rental Ford Mustang Convertible.

And then finally, after just an amazingly fun drive, we crested, and began the descent on the west side.

Now it was on the west side that we ran into the most traffic. That was either due to it being later in the day and they were finally here, or due to tourons in rental Ford Mustang convertibles driving to the top and then back down to the International Airports side.

We have never SEEN so many Ford Mustang convertibles, and we couldn't be too concerned, seeing as how we were nothing more than a couple of Ford Mustang convertible tourons ourselves, back on the Hana Highway trip to Maui that one year.

See what I mean? Tourons I tell you, Tourons!

Not long after cresting, we pulled over for some nice shots.

That's the Pacific Ocean back there.

Then began the long, windy descent. Something we noticed about Tourons? When driving what they consider a scary road in a narrow car, they feel they need to keep the road divider line directly under the center of their car, like it's an electric rail or something - especially on ALL blind curves.

We couldn't help but smile as we watched terrified faces in Ford Mustang convertibles coming around every bend in the road! That was worth the price of admission - right there! OMG laughing is so good for the soul!