A Fast Ride in Search of a Sunset

Another day in Northern California, another cruise out to the coast to catch a sunset ... or so I thought.

When I got out to San Gregorio today, the coast was totally socked in by a fogbank. So I started driving south on Route 1 to see if I might be able to see the sun farther down the coast.  That may sound foolishly optimistic, but I've seen it happen quite a few times before.  And what the heck, I was on Route 1 in a fast car.

First stop, the foggy rocky shores of Pescadero:

Lovely glamour shots of a Dodge Challenger in a fogbank, but no sunset. Onwards!

Finally, just around the time I hit the Santa Cruz County line and Big Basin State Park, I got ahead of the fog bank.

But I could tell by the way the fog was still rolling in that I'd probably need to make it another 50 miles down the coast if I wanted a sunset.  Sigh.  I gave up the chase and decided to turn around and head back up the coast.  At least the fog had discouraged the tourists, so I could blast back up Route 1 at an unsavory speed in my ridiculous muscle car with nary a bit of traffic ahead to slow me down....

Hey, where'd this guy in the anti-muscle car come from?

As you might imagine, the Challenger made quick work of this cute obstacle.

Then much to my surprise, as I neared Half Moon Bay a crack in the fog appeared!

I pulled over and took a look.  Somewhere out there, across the farm fields, the beaches, and the waves, a sunset was trying to crack through the fog!

I hopped back in the car, drove up the coast a bit further, took the first left-hand turn I could find, and headed out to the coast.  The sunset chase was back on!

As I drove on a little side road out to the beach, a bright orange Sun dropped beneath the clouds and took a brilliant plunge into the sea. Truly spectacular.  Alas, I was driving and didn't capture a picture.

But I did stop the car, jump out, and take these two photos about ten seconds later. It looks like it was a very pretty sunset on Pillar Point, if you happened to be there:

And a few minutes later I got down to the beach and enjoyed a very pretty afterglow. The light coming in under the fog and reflecting off the water was really something special:

And so it was that my fast ride on the coast did indeed find a sunset, though hardly where I expected to see one and long after I'd given up hope!

Sunset in San Gregorio

A bit of photoblogging today on the ol' Patio Boat.  I'm out in California this week for work, so last night I took a drive out to the coast to catch the sunset.  I ended up watching it at the beach in San Gregorio, which is about 40 miles down the coast from San Francisco.

Enjoy!

This is my rental ride this week, a 2013 Dodge Challenger. I decided to shell out a bit more from my own pocket to upgrade over the dull compact that company policy authorized.  Why? Several reasons:

1) When I was a kid I always thought the old Challengers were one of the coolest looking cars in the world, and the new ones are one of the best retro muscle car looks out there. So ever since they started coming out I've wanted to drive one.

2) Because this is going to be one of the greatest weather weeks of the year for MGB driving in Michigan, and I'm missing it. So I had a nice rationalization on that front.

3) Because Tommy Boy damn well wants it that way. (For those who don't know Tommy Boy, he's a former Detroit Rugby player who bought a new Challenger this week.)

4) Funsies!


I don't have much to say about the sunset itself, except that I was sitting down on the cliffside and eating a tasty veggie burrito during most of it.  There may be better sunset experiences than sitting on the cliffs at San Gregorio eating a tasty veggie burrito. But I'm sure it's a short list.


Looking out at the cliffs and the sunset:

From the top of the cliffs:

Looking North.

 Looking West.

Looking South.


After the sunset I loaded up the Challenger and drove back to the Bayside via one of my favorite driving routes in all the world: La Honda Rd. from San Gregorio to the top of the mountain, then Skyline Blvd North along the mountain top to Route 92.  Much of that used to be my daily commute when I lived in La Honda in the 90s.  What really amazed me as I thrashed the Challenger along that enormously windy route was looking back at how fast I used to drive it in the Mighty Plymouth Acclaim.

Finally, one last photo. The Challenger atop Skyline Blvd., looking out at the San Francisco Bay.

All in all, an excellent drive!

More from California: Tim Kardos's Austin Mini

How about another quick round of photoblogging from California, this time on my friend Tim Kardos's Austin Mini?

Tim brought his Austin Mini to work Friday, and gave me a bit of a tour. It was fun to see it again, since I remembered it from when he first got it. That was well before I entered the world of British car ownership, but knowing somebody who had picked up a classic British car successfully was certainly one of the influences that led me to my MGB.

The Mini's 1.3L four-cylinder engine, certainly a corporate cousin of my MGB's 1.8L engine. There are some interesting differences. Tim still has the original dual SU carburetors, and the engine is transverse-mounted because the Mini is front-wheel drive. That causes the radiator to be over on the side, not facing front, and can lead to a bit of an overheating challenge. Still, in a car this small and light, a zippy 1.3L motor moves it along quite nicely

The "Does a big lummox fit?" test. The answer is "Yes, mostly." The headroom wasn't too bad, but the legroom was a bit tight. Overall, though, better than you'd expect.

One of the fun things that I'd forgotten about Tim's Mini is that it was originally an Italian car. So all of the labels on the dials and dash are in Italian.

And away goes Tim! It was great to see another cool classic British car still on the road, though I don't suppose I'll be able to persuade him to drive it out to Michigan for this year's "Battle of the Brits."



Photos for our Facebook holdout

Somebody among our little group of Patio Boat blog followers refuses to join Facebook. So when I sent her a link to the photos of my current little work trip to California, she couldn't see them at all.

So for her, and anybody else holding on to the last shreds of his or her social media independence, here are a few photos from the non-work portion of my trip to California.

I've been staying with my Aunt Carol and Uncle Joe in Berkeley this week.  They have a very nice house up in the hills.  For the first few days I stayed in the house, then this week I've been staying in the guest apartment over the garage:

I'm not lonely up here. The deer come to visit.

Here's a photo of the main house and its historical marker.

Sunset view of Mount Tam across the Bay.

This is Joe with Nell. She's a black English Lab puppy, and one of the sweetest, best natured puppies I've ever met. So why does she have the muzzle? Sadly, she was bitten by a pit bull a couple of weeks ago and pretty badly wounded with a broken jaw. She had to have some pretty extensive surgery. Then she got an infection in the wound, so she had to have another surgery today. Tonight she's in both the muzzle and the Cone of Shame.  Hopefully this time everything will heal okay.

Last Saturday my friends Tim and Jennifer Kardos hosted a little "Welcome John Back to California" shindig. Okay, the truth is that it the occasion was mostly an excuse for Tim to clear out the dribs and drabs that cluttered up his Scotch shelf.  But the Scotch was tasty and the companionship delightful:

Jeff Harm. You'd have a slightly mysterious smile, too, if you'd had that much Scotch.

The Patio Boat's faithful Indy Colts haiku correspondent, Mary Campbell-Droze, with her husband Jerry.

Your humble photoblogger. The guy in the background pointing at me and laughing is Mark Berger. He's not blurry because he's out of focus. He's blurry because he drank even more Scotch than Harm.

And finally....

... the California coast, just South of Half Moon Bay.

And that's it from Berkeley.  What I really should have here is a Russian dashcam (TM) for my daily commute across the Bay to the office in Belmont. There's a lot of crazy stuff on those highways, and it seems to have gotten crazier every year. I miss a lot of things about California sometimes. But that commute? Never.