We're trying to get down South, to the bottom of the USA. We need to get around the bottom of the Rocky Mountains to avoid having to drive over the snowy Mountain passes..... but not really. It's just an excuse to drive down the entire west coast to see places like Santa Barbara and San Diego. On the way down. we spent a day or so in Santa Cruz, a totally hippie place, close to our previous home in Silicon Valley, with a pleasant combo of Vampires and Pot heeds. Kind of a lazy place... and found a very lazy, little dude, wiggling away in the marina water.....
This happy little sea otter typified the local attitude to spending time in Santa Cruz. He, or She, just lay in the water wiggling & twisting contently. We though we'd try that at the next opportunity....
There were not too many blue water cruising boats that took our interest in the Santa Cruz marina. No Aluminum Cruisers. A lot of ~36ft plastic boats in the Marina, used by day sailors and a couple of 70ft sleek racing boats for coastal races.
We also saw a familiar 38ft Beneteau sloop, that we had sailed in , for a couple of weeks in the Med, with Dougie and Holly; a couple of years back.
Having reached mid-level California, the weather had become 'perfect' again; thanks to the Hadley cell and the pacific ridge. The recent Pineapple Express Rains though, had washed out highway-1 along the coastal road further south, so we were forced to take highway 101 down though the veggie and central wine belt of the US.
We shot down to check out Solvang, CA - a Dutch colony and the place where the movie 'Sideways' was filmed; and indulged in too much wine tasting... again. When in Rome....
Further South, the recent fire and drought damage was clear on the run between Solvang and Santa Barbara; just like Ukiah. It's so sad that fire has to burn homes and people alive; in order for many to be able to take notice of Anthropologic Climate Change. A hard lesson, but lets hope it's one that sticks!! A couple of the Winery Owners in the tasking rooms were admitting that they hadn't taken Climate change seriously - until now.
We saw a couple of the first brand new Tesla Model 3's on the way. So things are changing for the better... the world's first good looking, low cost, volume production, EV.
The Super Charger network was being used more than we had seen before, in the remote veggy belt areas, south of San Jose. It's an 'important' solar powered interconnection between North and South California.
Dawn spent a lot of time putting the car window up and down and up and down again, having realized that the aroma was actually the massive fields of Brussel sprouts and Artichokes 'outside' of the car - and not her innocent husband beside her, at all. Even so, it took some convincing....
