Challenges on the Pacific Coast Highway

The Pacific Coast Highway is a 1,600 mile route from San Diego to Seattle along the West Coast of the United States. The most popular part of this route is Highway 1 along the California coast. I started my route mid-March in San Diego on the Africa Twin Adventure Sports DCT that Honda is letting me borrow for 2023 with the intention of riding from San Diego to Seattle. However, I experienced some hurdles. Atmospheric rivers are expected to slam California in the coming weeks. They expect to have some major flooding, some that we haven't seen since back in the 70s. Hello, beautiful people. If you're new here, my name is Amanda Zitto and welcome to San Diego and the start of the Pacific Coast Highway. This is not normally my venue, but I wanted to get as close to the beginning of the Pacific Coast Highways as I could get. And now we are here and now we're going to make our way north along 1 and 101, as close to the coast as we can get anyway. Let's hit the road, shall we? Lodging along the California coast can be very expensive. So for my first night on this trip, I found a room on Airbnb in Valley Center, California under $100 and counted myself lucky, especially because there was an Italian restaurant within walking distance. Even in warmer months, the coast is subject to mist and foggy weather. It usually forms in the morning and then slowly burns off as the day warms up. So most people who travel the Pacific Coast Highway tend to get a later start so they can see more of the scenery. I spent a good amount of time watching these brown pelicans search for fish by flying low over the water. Then when they spot potential food, they dive down and use their bill as a giant scoop to pick up fish and water. The water will drain out the sides of the bill's pouch and the fish will be pushed to the back of the throat. Sometimes smaller birds will try to steal the fish right out of a pelican's mouth. A lot of Highway 1 and 101 south of LA goes through congested beach towns. Lane splitting in California is legal, but there isn't always space to filter when you are loaded with luggage. So I spent a good amount of time sitting in traffic wishing I was already farther north. Well, good morning, beautiful people from the LA area. The amazing Cindy let me stay with her last night so I did not have to pay LA area prices. So that was lovely. And this morning we're headed to Honda America headquarters in Torrance, California. And the Africa twins is gonna get some tender love and affection. And then depending on how long that takes today, my goal is to get to Hearst-San Simeon State Park tonight. We hope. It's like spa day. I'm a giant nerd, so I was like, I get to go to a Honda service area. Well, I seem to have found myself an atmospheric river that it's really hard to document, but everything is covered in a fine layer of water. My glasses are covered in it, everything. And it's very foggy. So it's really, really difficult to see. And now it is dark, as you can see. So I'm 30 minutes from the campsite that I reserved for the night, but I think it might be a better idea just to stop here in Morrow Bay instead of meandering my way through a fog bank at an atmospheric river. I think that's just the smart thing to do. So I found myself a cheap hotel here in Morrow Bay and I'm gonna head that direction. And I guess escape this, as what I can only describe as an atmospheric river. That's all that I've got. That's the only words that I know how to describe it. Cause wow, I'm under the awning and it's still, yeah. Not too shabby for a last minute room. And under 70 bucks too. I approve. Good morning, beautiful people from Morrow Bay, California. A very, very rainy Morrow Bay. And there are some flood warnings in the area that I'm supposed to go today. My goal was to get to Santa Cruz where I booked a hip camp for the night so that I would have a reasonably priced place to stay. Well, let's look at the map together, shall we? This is the Monterey area. I'm somewhere down here on the map right now. I need to go there today. All of these big red areas, that's everywhere that's been affected by the flooding. This big section here on highway one is totally closed. Cannot go there, which isn't a big deal cause I was planning to hop between one and the 101, but this is the 101. Today's gonna be interesting. Unfortunately, it is too late to cancel my hip camp reservation. They have a 48 hour in advance policy in order to cancel reservations. So I'm gonna skip Pinnacles National Park today because one, it's gonna be raining everywhere I'm going today. I checked the weather. It's gonna be cold and raining everywhere that I'm gonna hit. And I don't really wanna hike in the rain and Pinnacles National Park is definitely a park that you kind of need to hike a little bit to appreciate. So I'm gonna save that for another trip when the weather is better and just head straight to Santa Cruz. And I have a feeling I'm gonna need that little bit of extra time anyway to navigate any detours that I'm going to experience in my future thanks to all the flooding in Monterey County. So everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. Morrow Bay is defined by Morrow Rock and even in the rain, it is magnificent. Even though my reservation was for a tent camping spot, my very kind hip camp host had pity on me and allowed me to stay here in this little cabin. I was able to spend the afternoon cozied up with my laptop editing photos while my gear had a chance to dry out. I'll leave a link to this hip camp listing in the description along with a code to give you $10 off your next hip camp reservation. Question for my end screen crew, have you experienced an atmospheric river before? In the next episode. ♪♪♪