A day on CA1 : A day of madness

Bootstrapping

There were some ambiguity on the July 4th weekend on whether Qualcomm is giving the Friday as holiday or the Monday. I hate confusion. So I took both days off. That decision gifted me with one complete day to make the return trip from Sunnyvale to San Diego. Almost every long weekend I visited Sunnyvale to see my friends Samik and Anish. Each time I traveled on the rather uninteresting I5 highway in order to make it within eight hours. Also each time I traveled at night to save a day. Driving alone at night for eight hours is not the easiest of the things I have done, but repeatedly I had to prove myself that I could do it. But this time I had one complete day to make the return trip. I chose my long desired route - the beautiful California 1 coastal highway!


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Over the weekend I finished a fascinating trip of northern California with my four friends - Samik, Ananya, Anish and Shalini. We visited the beautiful coastal town called Mendocino, enjoyed World's Largest Salmon BBQ festival (Yummy!) etc etc.. But that story later..

Monday morning, when Ananya and Samik left for office (I was staying with them), I was doing my packing. Packing is a very important part of any trip. It is never waste of time to put some extra thinking behind what all things will be required to be easily accessible during the trip versus the things I will need later. Also, it is important to keep some stuffs for emergency conditions. These are more important for me since a lot of time I travel alone. I kept my still camera, video camera separate. Filled a big bottle with water. Stole some biscuits from Ananya's stock. Made sure my first-aid kit is packed. Dumped the bigger bag in the trunk and the hand bag on the passenger seat for easy access and started my Honda Accord. It was a very modest start to what was otherwise going to be a remarkable day!

I was running low on gas. So first I went to the nearest gas station and did tank full. Then I started on the historic El Camino Real (In English it means the Royal Road). This road goes through the heart of this Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Mountain View area. On and off, this road is visible in various parts of California. I heard this is a very old and long road. Now it exists only in parts as you go from north to south of the state. I heard stories that in days when there were no cars, people used to walk from southern California to San Francisco over this road. In between there were churches built to shelter traveling people. Those churches were named after saints. Like San Diego, Santa Ana, San Jose etc. They are big cities now. Not sure whether the stories are true, but I love to believe.

After some left-right turns in no time I was on highway 17, on the way to Santa Cruz. Highway 17 was built in 1940, few years after the depression. I found it to be a very scenic highway with lots of sudden speed changes and surprising sharp turns. It was fun to drive on. But no wonder this highway accounts for large number of accidents and fatalities every year. With a careful driving session, I reached Santa Cruz by 9:30 morning. Santa Cruz is the place where highway 17 meets CA1. It was easy to find the exit to CA1 south. I was excited. First time in my life I was driving on my dream road. California 1.



The initial impression did not quite go with the reputation. This road is supposed to be one of the most scenic and adventurous highways of the World! But at Santa Cruz it was just like any other state highway, busy and little unruly. I took an exit to Santa Cruz town and finished my breakfast.

Around 10 am I started the second phase of my journey. I was already dreaming of the road twisting on the hills with pacific on one side. But I knew I had to wait for some more time. For about half an hour I drove through very usual and plain American terrains. CA1 runs couple of miles away from the sea in this area. First time it kissed the pacific at Moss Landing where I saw a yacht yard with couple of small sail boats and catamarans parked. Recently I discovered a hidden interest in myself for sailing and my heart beats when I see these boats.

Monterey

A few minutes later I was driving by the sea side. Just before entering the beautiful Monterey town I saw the exit to highway 218. I was not going to take it. Not this time. But this goes to the famous Laguna Seca tracks where MotoGP happens every year. I am planning to visit next year MotoGP. I also have a desire of riding my motorcycle on this track, sometime!

Monterey is a beautiful beautiful town by the sea. Looked to be a perfect vacation place for spending some days doing water adventures. From top of a hill, from the highway, I saw thousands of people enjoying boat riding, yachting, sailing in the Monterey bay. The saturated blue color of the bay vanished in the horizon. I pulled my car out of the road and enjoyed this beauty for few minutes. I could not afford more.

Few miles after Monterey, I was driving right beside the sea. CA1 has already taken the form it is famous for.

The Pacific Coastal Highway

On my right hand side, the dark blue color of the Pacific waters softly melted with the light blue sky. Creating a very vague horizon line. On my left there was this mountainous elevation covered with dark green grass. The grass bed was spotted with bright yellow color unknown flowers, giving it the look of an enormous Kashmiri Pashmina. The road itself was at some height from the ocean level. That meant I had a very far reaching horizon line and a large section of my visual canvas was colored with blue.

It is truly an inexplicable beauty. One has to be there to feel it. I am adding few photos here to do little justice to what I saw.




I drove miles after miles savoring this god's gift. It was becoming hard to keep eyes focused on the sharp turns of CA1. But that was part of the fun too. From the other side, motorcycle gangs were passing by me very frequently. Hundreds of motorcyclists take this route every day. This is one of the best routes to ride Motorcycle in America. The unique fact is, generally when you talk of best motorcycle routes, you talk of one or two hour long roads. But CA1 is a whole day long route, which makes it one of its kind, among the best. I started missing my motorcycle!

Big Sur and Big Lunch

It was about 12, noon. The road left the coastal line and entered the redwood forest. On both sides of the road there were those giant redwood trees. They are the tallest trees of the world. Sometime it is hard to see the top of these trees. They just vanish in the sky. My tiny car was running over the thin road beneath these giants. I reached Big Sur.



At this point I realized I was hungry. I could not locate too many establishments beside road in Big Sur. Finally I reached a place which looked good from outside and was quite crowded. It was called the The River Inn. It was really beside a small wild creek. They had a restaurant whose patio extended till the river bed. On the river they had put couple of chairs half dipped in river stream where people were enjoying relaxed time with beer while their legs where getting massaged by the smooth flowing cold water. They also had a lovely swimming pool beside the river, most of which was occupied by bikini clad ladies and kids. I wanted to spent some time on the river side, but my stomach took me to the restaurant. I selected their outdoor seating and a table with a view. When I finished my King Salmon Sandwich I had already spent an hour in the restaurant. I came out of the patio and looked around to enjoy one of those river chairs. But to my surprise, I discovered that this was a place where even fishes were swimming in pairs. So much so that I started thinking that my presense was breaking the law of nature. It was time to start again.

Afternoon Nap and the Honk

I crossed those forests full of giant ghostly redwood trees. Passed by numerous state parks. On and off meeting the ocean on one side. I was focusing on the road....on the break paddle....on the on coming traffic....and then....I saw a red light shining brighter and brighter on my eyes. My thoughts went to my childhood. My college days.. friends.. close ones.. people I lost, I will never get back.. The journey of life became together with the journey of road.. which could have ended right there without the honk!



It was a desperate honk. I opened my eyes and saw that I have crossed the yellow line and was almost facing a truck from the other side. A cold shiver ran through my spine. I was hallucinating! I thanked all the gods of the world and the truck driver and pulled my car off to a shoulder. I put the car seat back, emergency lights on, closed my eyes and slept like a baby.

When I opened my eyes, it took me some time to remember my current situation. I never woke up like this before. Right on the lap of Pacific. When I analyzed how I did what I did, I found it was the after lunch metabolism that drained all my energy and almost took me to sleep while I was driving! I have to be careful and planned on this. But that said, it felt good. Many people travels on CA1, but how many of them really enjoyed an afternoon nap on the road?

By Hearst Castle

I lost almost an hour in the sleep. I had to hurry. The sleep worked well though and I was feeling fresh. I pressed on the accelerator and started making the miles faster. Hours after hours passed. I kept on driving on this beautiful road thinking this should never end, crossing so many beautiful sea side resorts and parks. So many small sea side towns came and passed. When I was passing by San Simeon, I saw a sign board giving direction to the Hearst Castle. My watch did not allow me, but otherwise I would have loved to visit the castle. Anyway, for those who have seen the 1941 movie Citizen Kane, the movie, which is considered as one of the best piece of work in the history of world cinema, was loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst. This was his castle till 1947. I just passed by the sign board.

The Elephant Seals

I just happened to note them on the road side. They were lying on the ground. Hundreds in number. They were giants. Each one around 6 to 8 feet tall. I never saw this big seals in such huge numbers. I stopped my car, took my camera and went close to them. While walking towards the water I noticed a squirrel running behind me. I offered him some left over biscuit I had in my pocket and he took it by standing on his two legs. He even nodded at me to say thank you. Amazing! In the water I found some pairs of seals playing with each other. But the seals on the ground were enjoying the sun in a very lazy manner. They were using their fins to put as much sand as possible on their body. Other than that they were barely showing any body movements. I enjoyed the view of these wonderful creatures for some time. I also made a small video. You can see if you are interested.

Home Sweet Home

Few hours passed and I felt that time was approaching when the road is going to say good bye to pacific and going to hide inside the American mainlands. That happened right after I crossed the beautiful Morro Bay. Morro Bay looked to be a very interesting place too and I will visit it again some time. But after that CA1 became an ordinary American highway passing through local towns. When I reached Santa Maria, sun was already falling. I regretted that I did not see the sunset while I was driving beside the Pacific. But then I had to leave something for next time.

After Santa Maria I took the Highway 154 route. It was a small stretch of mountain road with lot of enjoyable vistas. I joined Highway 101 at Santa Barbara. After that it was a not so mentionable journey to San Diego. Home sweet home! When I went to bed I was still driving beside the sea.

The Deccan Safari Part 2 (Cochin to Bangalore) : Diary of a solo rider

Some prophet said, "If you are scared of the path ahead, look back at the long path behind you. Its you who have already covered it." Not very encouraging always.

Day 1 : Mettupalayam (11 th November)

Good bye Cochin : The afternoon meal was heavy. Once in Cochin, my stomach belongs to my aunt and I don't get any say over the selection of food items or food amount. I took a macro sleep of about fifteen minutes. When I woke up, my bag was already packed and aunt was standing, sad and worried. I took some time to console her that I will drive carefully and come back again whenever I get a chance. Finally it was time to say good bye to my aunt, uncle, brothers, my dear sister and to Cochin. I kick started my 180 cc Pulsar classic.

Coming out of Tripunetra, my anunt's place, was little difficult. It was around 2:30 pm. Weather was hot and the road was busy. It took me around thirty minutes to reach the Cochin bypass which is just 6 kilometers away from Tripunetra. The bypass was wide but very busy. After around 15 minutes of drive I got the junction where I had to take a right turn on the road to Trichur. NH 47. I was foretold by Rajesh, my cousin, that till Coimbatore NH 47 is a national highway at its worst. Considering I was not at all impressed by the condition of NH 17 while coming from Bangalore, you can imagine what impression of NH 47 I created after hearing this from him. Thanks to those scary expectations, I actually found the road quite good. It was very busy though. But traffic reduced slightly as I left Cochin more and more behind.

Trichur: It was around 80 km drive from Cochin to Trichur. I was fast but careful. In Kerala, you can not relax while driving, even if the road is not busy. Any living entity can jump on the road from any side at any time. I didn't enter Trichur. Thankfully NH 47 bypassed the city by 7-8 kilometers and went ahead.

The road changed dramatically. In matter of minutes I started realizing what exactly my brother was warning me. He was talking of the condition of the highway from Trichur to Coimbatore. I realized that the best part of the day's journey was over. It was going to be a difficult and painful evening ride. I had to cover nearly 80 more kilometers on this road to reach Coimbatore and it was already 4:30 pm. Oofs!

NH 47: Let me tell you, it was wide. Much wider than NH 17. But where was the road?? It was all broken and demolished. I just prayed for my bike and continued at a steady speed in spite of all the hostility. Occasionally I was crossing places where some tar was left on the surface, but they were all riddled with pot holes like Om Puri's skin. I was getting the feeling of riding a horse rather than a bike on a highway. But time was ticking, sun was falling and distance ahead was constantly warning me. I could not afford to slow down. There were number of places where I had to take diversions from the main road and drive through some local villages to avoid the "highway!". As I approached Palakkad, things worsened. Traffic increased. Its here that I faced one of the worst traffic jams of my life. Huge number of buses and trucks standing like hills, unmoved. Only good thing about such jams is, as a bike rider you always get some gap between those big vehicles through which you can maneuver your vehicle out. But of course not with ease. After around one hour of trekking with the bike, I came out of the jam. It felt like a lifetime.

As I expected, the highway did not enter the city of Palakkad. It bypassed it by few kilometers. I took a small tea break here. My back was paining slightly. When I restarted it was 6:30 pm. Sun was almost down. I had to switch on my head lights. I don't remember how many pot holes I flew over, how many stones my tires hit.. I just remember after around an hour of drive I saw the board, "Coimbatore" pointing to left. I had a sigh of relief and happily headed towards Coimbatore as the diseased NH 47 continued straight, towards Selam.

Mettupalayam: It was already 8 pm when I entered Coimbator. I was still in dilemma whether I should take refuge here or should continue to Ooty. I took a small tea break to sort out the issues. The tea shop owner was a good old man and informed me that it can be very risky now to head for Ooty, since the road is narrow and all the trucks will come down the hill now. He said Coimbator is also not a very good place to stay. Instead, he suggested me to reach Mettupalayam, a town at the foothill of Ooty. It took me another one hour to cover the 53 kilometer distance to reach Mettupalayam, but finally it was worth the extra effort.

Mettupalayam is a small but busy town. It has a descent market which was open even at 9:30 pm when I went for dinner. Somehow, I was not feeling hungry. I took some light dosa-chicken curry and found a good hotel for the night. It was a big and luxurious hotel. I took a double bed room with TV for just 250 bucks (Very cheap, isn't it!). I made sure my bike was parked in a safe place, put the alarm for morning 5 am and.. not sure when.. felt the tiredness overwhelming me and I slept.

Day 2 : Ooty (12 th November)

Kothagiri : Early morning, at around 6 am, I quickly finished the checkout formalities and started my engine. Within few kilometers distance I found a Y junction. The left arm was going to Ooty and the right arm was going to Kothagiri. But, to my surprise, the Ooty path was blocked. Local people told me that I have to take the Kothagiri path and from Kothagiri I have to take the Ooty road. "And", they said, "this road is about 30 km longer than the direct road". "An early morning disaster", I said to myself. But it was not to be so.

Before I could get my engine properly heated, I found myself climbing the hills. The weather was cool and fresh. There were some kind of refreshing fragrance in the air. Soon the reason was clear. I found myself covered with beautiful flower trees and weeds from both sides. Lot of those flowers I have never seen before. Blue, Orange, Yellow, White.. whatever color possible. I have never seen such a colorful road side. It was as if god has carefully painted the path. I was racing through a dreamland. It was a good 20 kilometers of drive through a nature made flower garden. As I drove more and more higher, with the altitude slowly the flowers vanished. Except, some wild flowers still continued their appearance.

Kothagiri is a beautiful small town. From there I took the diversion to Ooty.

Ooty : Kothagiri to Ooty is a usual mountain road. Taking its twists and turns. The road was bright black and spot free. Traffic was less. I cruised to Ooty in about an hour and half. At 9 am I was taking my breakfast in Ooty.

I came to this city twice before. This is a very busy and overcrowded one. In the city itself, there is nothing much to see except a botanical garden, a lake and a rose garden. The rose garden is mostly dry. I am yet to hear from someone who has seen roses in Ooty rose garden. This is not one of my favorite hill stations but still I know almost every gali in the place. So, instead of wasting time here I decided to move on and took the highway to Mysore.

Few kilometers from Ooty, there is a split in the road. While the main road continues to Gudalur, the split, a shortcut, goes directly to Gundlupet. I was aware of this shortcut and continued on it. While the road via Gudalur is very popular and all the major traffic travels via this, it was not clear to me why the other road, in spite of being a good 30/40 km short, is so underrated. The reason became more and more clear to me as I continued on it.

Very soon the road presented me a series of hairpin bands. Each one is very shallow with very steep descent. It needed really careful driving. More dangerous fact was, the surrounding beauty of lofty hills was so breathtaking that it was very difficult to concentrate on the road itself. The experience was more like sliding down a wall. In spite of driving carefully and slow, I was reducing my altitude at a rapid rate. The road had enough warning boards spread around on its sides to inform the drivers about its dangerous curves. The descent was more like fast-forward rewind of my ascent. In very small time gaps, I saw the flora and fauna changing with altitude.

Mudumalai : In matter of an hour I was on the plains again. It was hot and I had to get rid of the jacket. It was time for ride through Mudumalai wild life sanctuary. On the check-post, one guard asked me if I have seen any road block due to a fallen tree. "No", I answered him. But looked like this is a frequent phenomena here and that meant the place is really "wild". The journey through the sanctuary was as beautiful as my journey through Bandipur while going to Cochin. But minus the morning weather which I got while riding through Bandipur. Nevertheless, it was joy of bike riding it its best. But the gift was, I spotted some lazy elephants taking rest beside a pond and some restless deers jumping around on the road side. I carefully drove past them without disturbing their natural habitat.

Bangalore, Oof! : Once out of jungle, I was engulfed by typical Karnataka surroundings. Soon I crossed Gundlupet, the town where I did night stay while going to Cochin. An hour more and I was in the city of Mysore. Here, I messed up with the roads and instead of taking the bypass, ended up traveling right through the city. This delayed me a bit, but glimpses of the beautiful Mysore palace as a compensation. Once out of Mysore, it was a regular drive on the highway to Bangalore. I didn't have much time on hand, so drove fast. Kamath has a good vegetarian restaurant on the way where I took my lunch. It was around 3 pm, I was terribly hungry. Took a good authentic south Indian meal at Rs 80. By then I was very tired of the single very long stretch that I covered since morning. Around 250 km. But once some food went in the stomach, I was refreshed again. My bike roared to Bangalore.

I wish I could tell you a fairy tale ending of this fantastic return trip. But I was welcomed to the city of gardens with traffic jams, crowd, smoke and noise everywhere. I felt suffocating. We IT engineers have chocked the city. With a lot of pain I reached my office at around 4 pm. Yes, it was monday, a working day, and I had to work the remaining day in office. Soon I was dealing with all software rotten eggs... past was past.

Learnings of the day :

1. From Mettupalayam, never take the direct road to Ooty but take the road through Kothagiri. The extra kilometers will be more than compensated by the beauty of the road.
   
2. From Ooty to Gundlupet, try the shortcut. Its a different experience.