My good friend Mikey came out from the east coast to visit. Every time he visits we usually end up hanging out in San Diego so I decided that a road trip was in order. From past trips together we knew the best experiences happen when we let fate take over and just go for the ride. I was planning on taking some old medium format cameras with me to spice things up but I forgot them so instead I processed the shots differently than I normally would have. I hope you like them. I added a recording of Mikey at Joshua Tree to go with the photos.

 

So this is the route we took. My plan was to cruise up to LA and get on the 1 all the way up to Half Moon Bay. Well we got to Santa Barbara and traffic was stand still. We were hungry so I said lets get off here. We stopped in Montecito and quickly realized the only food we could afford was sold at the gas station. We bought a map and picked a road to take to the 5. We ended up going through Los Padres National Forest which is awesome.

Route 33 is what we took through the forest. The road twists and turns through the mountains and every so often opens up to views like this.

We were at 5000 feet on this mountain. There was snow on the shady side of the road.

Crisp air and a killer view

 

The shot on the right is from when we finally arrived in Berkeley, between these two photos is hours of driving on the 5 north. If you have done it you know there is not much to see. One of the worst things about the 5 north is you pass a cow farm if that is what you want to call it. There are thousands of cows packed in a pen walking around in their own waste. The smell almost made us vomit.

This is our first morning in Berkeley at Greg's house. Berkeley smells like flowers. Mikey was excited to get over to San Fran to see if it smelled like Rice a Roni.

Channeling Jerry to guide us.

Ready to get over to SF. Quick game of punch out waiting for the BART.

I thinking posting the time until the next train makes the wait feel longer.

So we did the tourist thing and headed down to fisherman's wharf.

SF

Everywhere you look there is a bridge.

Bay Bridge

Chilling

I have only been to SF once before this trip and I didn't get to go to Alcatraz so we made a point of getting out there.

Does this take you to the Rice a Roni?

We had some time to kill before Alcatraz so we checked out some more sights.

 

So we finally got on the ferry to Alcatraz and this seagull hovered over the boat looking for food to grab from people. I saw him come within a few inches of a little kid.

Looking back

Pulling up to the rock.

View from the rock.

This is Ranger John, he welcomed everyone to the island and was giving a tour called escapes. He talked about the famous three that were featured in the Clint Eastwood movie. They got out of their cells in the middle of the night and they were never found. His opinion was that these guys drowned on their swim off the island. He believed if they made it they would have shown up again somewhere as they were career criminals. Ranger John has personally made the swim himself so it is not impossible.

The tour is an audio tour with narration by former guards and prisoners. The sounds effects are pretty realistic, I caught myself looking over my shoulder a couple times. The first place you walk into is the shower room just like new prisoners would.

Bars everywhere

At the end of the rows of cells were the gun galleries where the armed guards would monitor the floor. On the right is the entrance to the dining hall. It was considered the most dangerous part of the prison as inmates were given a full set of silverware.

Well I guess this is my prison face.

I think Mikey was intimidated by my prison face.

The most desirable cells were the ones that got sunlight during the day.

On the left is one of the cells that the famous 3 escaped from. They used their spoons to enlarge their air vents. They climbed up the pipes in the wall and made it to the roof. On the right is the kitchen where a few stabbings happened. The sounds effects were pretty realistic.

These are the offices of the Wardens.

There were some small windows for the prisoners to look out. This is what they would have seen sans the Asian couple.

The prisoners narrating the tour said the hardest part about being there was how close they were to where they wanted to be yet so far from it. After the tour we headed down the 1 to Big Sur.

We pulled up to this spot and Mikey said it looked familiar. Years ago I was at this spot and made a print for him of a photo I took here.

Fog is serious up north.

L-I-V-I-N'

Two thumbs up

Landscape without the clowns.

 

 

 

Not a bad spot for lunch even if it is Wal Mart cheese on dry bread.

 

So these guys are elephant seals. The females had their babies next to them. The males were huge and looked tired from mating. These guys can get up to a couple tons.

The seagulls were so loud occasionally one of the seals would bark at them.

There were some waves coming through but this looked like heaven for a shark.

Across the street from the seals were some cows. Every time we would see someone on a touring bike we were impressed. Driving the coast kicked my ass let alone biking it.

After some time on the 1 we decided to cut across to the 5 to save some time and the route was awesome.

 

Mikey will rock your socks off, or his shoes.

 

 

 

Back on the road.

Eventually the road leveled out and we were cruising through almond farms for miles. We both needed a rest and by chance stopped here. I'm glad this was not my final stopping point.

We finally made it to Joshua Tree. We were telling people at the Joshua Tree Saloon how we drove from Big Sur to Joshua Tree in a day and they thought we were insane.

Keep rocking

Up for the sunrise and ready to get back to San Diego. We slept the whole day once we got home. It was an awesome trip. I highly recommend but with a little more time.