Route 101: Our American Roadtrip

Public transport options from San Francisco to LA are basically non-existent. Back in the UK I was keen to take a train down the coast so we could pick up our flights from LAX, but there is no direct service, and the only alternatives involve changing stations and waiting for countless connections.

I looked into catching a Greyhound bus, but that seemed like a worse option than the train, with the journey taking about 12 hours before finally dropping you off at a dodgy terminal in Skid Row. The reports written by other travellers on sites like TripAdvisor made it sound like a fate worse than death.

That only left two options: yet another flight on top of our already monster total of 14 this trip, or renting a car and driving the 400 miles or so ourselves. Clearly, only one option afterall.

We picked up our trusty steed (a big, comfy, floaty-steering Hyundai Sonata) from the rental car centre at the airport, plugged in a wisely chosen optional sat-nav, and hit the freeway.

Route 101 started off as plain old 8 lane freeway as we left the outskirts of San Francisco, but the driving was smooth and easy, and before too long we found ourselves in the wide open spaces of California farm country. Every now and then your eye would chance upon a little group of migrant workers, or the occaisional tractor rumbling along a dirt track that veered off the freeway, but generally we found ourselves looking at a whole lot of nothing.

Eclectic radio stations set a strange soundtrack; Christian rock always swiftly replaced by whatever else we could find. For a few happy minutes I even found some guns and roses, but every station seemed to blur into static after few miles so we just kept on retuning.

Soon enough the terrain got a little more interesting, and it felt like we were driving onto the set of a Western; rugged hills, dry gulches, ranches everywhere and amazing made-up sounding place names like Crazy Horse Canyon Road and Coyote Lake.

I settled back and got into a comfortable rythmn with the driving; very nearly too comfortable... I came around a bend in the road about 10 mph over the speed limit, just as Tasha pointed out a Highway Patrol car sneakily hiding in the shade of some trees. Immediately he pulled out behind us, and I started getting all sweaty palmed and trying to put on my most innocent face. Luckily (for us at least) he pulled over the car that was just behind ours. I'm guessing that guy didn't have a trusty cop-spotter sat in his passenger seat. I eased off the gas a little as they shrank away in my rearview mirror, and we just kept on driving.

...................................

When the Pacific suddenly appeared alongside us the rich blue of the ocean felt quite shocking after all those miles of dusty scrubland.

We made a pitstop at the fresh, salty seaside town of Pismo Beach, then pushed on again to beautiful Santa Barbara, where we had an impressive (but budget-straining) dinner, served by the best waiter either of us have ever seen.

Night fell as we made our way into the gridlocked madness of LA. The rental car return centre was in Inglewood, a place I only know from Tupac and NWA tracks, and we got there long after dark. We managed to make it out of there without anyone popping a cap in our asses though, so all's well that ends well...