Cayucos

Dino exploring the beach in Cayucos

Hwy 1 from Carmel to Cambria may be the most scenic drive in the world.  In my experience only the Amalfi coast in Italy comes close, and there you have to put up with those oversized buses the Italians insist on putting on a road half the width of Hwy 1.  Plus, Route 1 has the added advantage of being a whole lot closer.  The ideal instrument for traversing this somewhat twisty road would have been the Porsche, but Frieda wanted to take Dino Ferrari, our white collie, along for the ride, and he’s just too big to fit comfortably in the back of a 911, so we had to employ the Volvo.  It turned out that, for a leisurely drive, it was perfectly adequate.  I let Frieda steer and spent my time gawking at the scenery rather than carving apexes.  As we cruised through Big Sur I spotted a young man sitting in the shade by the side of the road, leaning against a redwood, with his nose in a book, and was reminded of my first visit to this spectacular area many years ago, when it was the haunt of well-heeled hippies.  I couldn’t see, as we sped past, whether it was Robinson Jeffers, Henry Miller, or Jack Kerouac he was perusing, but I still caught a whiff of the old magic that had charmed all of them and me as well.  At the southern end of the drive there’s a tight, twisty stretch of road.  The first time I drove it I was headed north from Ojai in a Corvair Corsa and worried that if the entire road was that serpentine I wouldn’t reach Santa Cruz until after dark.  But it turned out I had nothing to fret about.  That stretch only lasts a few miles.  In no time at all we had passed Cambria and reached our destination, the quaint little beach town of Cayucos, just north of Morro Bay.  

From our terrace in Cayucos

Going south the beaches darken from pearl in Carmel to cocoa in Cayucos, where the sand is punctuated with black, agglomerative rock formations ranging in size from a steamer trunk to a small cabin.  When we arrived it was sunny, but a strong, cool wind was coming in from the sea and I wished I’d worn my hoodie as we lunched out on the Sea Shanty’s deck with Dino.  The Shoreline Inn, right on the beach, was also dog friendly.  Dog compatibility seemed to be trending in the area, catering to empty nesters or DINKS like us, families filled out with canine kids.  The 3 of us went for a walk on the beach there and we found that, just as in our own neighborhood, Dino was the star of the show, fawned upon by everyone we met, while he, as usual, reveled in the attention, smiling and prancing for all like a movie star on the red carpet.  For dinner we got take-out fish tacos from the Smoke House and enjoyed them with a bottle of wine on our terrace, from which we could see, adrift in the haze, Morro Rock, a few miles to the south.  

Dockside and Morro Rock

Next day we drove down to Morro Bay for lunch at Dockside, where a combo was playing Dave Brubeck as fresh fish were being unloaded nearby.  It was quite enjoyable, with excellent clam chowder, fish tacos, and cold Stella Artois to wash it down.  The place even had leashes attached to the perimeter bench to hook Dino up and prevent him from wandering and becoming a nuisance.  Surprisingly cool breezes interrupted the warmth now and then and made us shiver.  Nevertheless we stayed until the combo quit, then wandered south along the docks checking out the restaurants and shops, the Rock looming over us, before circling back to the car.  The Rock, which was once quarried for granite, is connected to land by a sandy spit with a road, so we drove out to it. On the bay side was a nice, quiet beach, while on the ocean side it was choppy, tempestuous.  From there we headed down to Los Osos and Montaña de Oro State Park.  We had thought of taking the Bluff Trail with Dino but found it was closed to dogs, so had to content ourselves with the pebbly beach at Spooner’s Cove where Dino could romp on leash.  Back in Cayucos for supper we picked up shrimp cocktail, clam chowder, and salad at Duckie’s Chowder House, all quite tasty. 

Spooner's Cove

In the morning we cruised farther south to Avila Beach, noted for being a southern-facing beach shielded by highlands that wrap around the northern side of the town and protect it from the north wind and northwesterly swells. It’s the first beach, as you head south, that feels like southern California, and that makes it a strong candidate for an easy winter getaway. Not only was it notably warmer than Cayucos, with calmer waves, but the town also had a more chichi air. The beach was a dazzling eggshell, devoid of the rocks and clumps of kelp that litter the beach in Cayucos. We explored the waterfront for an hour or so, had some ice cream, and then hit the road back north, up through the Salinas Valley, a less scenic but quicker route home. Dino, who in the past has been a nervous car passenger, finally learned to relax, sleeping in the rear much of the way. He was tired from being on the go all morning with his people, time he normally would be snoozing

Avila Beach

When we got home I read in the news that the atmosphere had passed another milestone, 400 ppm. of CO2.  The last time the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was so high was 3 million years ago, long before the advent of homo sapiens, a time when sea levels were 50 to 75 feet higher than they are today.  In other words, our profligate dumping of CO2 has dialed in the programming for this level to return, dooming the world’s coastal cities, not to mention the lovely little towns I had just visited, and yet still we continue, business-as-usual, to dial in ever higher levels.  Stubbornness, a reluctance to change our ways, may prove an evolutionarily fatal quality for our species.