WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Look Around Miss.: Traveling through Calif.

Look Around Miss.: Traveling through Calif.

By Walt Grayson - bio | email

We left San Francisco and traveled through the salad bowl of America. Where they grow vegetables there like we grow cotton and soy beans here. Then it was on to Monterey where we took the famous 17-mile drive on the private road that passed Pebble Beach Golf Course. The weather was cloudy and cool again, like it was in San Francisco, for the same reason. We were skirting the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. And the sea breeze off the ocean keeps the land cool enough year round that they don't need air conditioning here.

A couple of the sights on the 17-mile road; Bird Rock. Cleverly named because birds roost on it. The white color of the rock is bird droppings. I wondered at the folks who owned the multi-million dollar houses along this road at having to smell the birds, since they open their windows because of no air conditioning.

We got our first good look at the Pacific Ocean on the 17-mile road at the Lonely Cedar. But the next day, we'd get GREAT views of it, those times we dared open our eyes, as we traveled southward on Highway 1. Now, California's Highway 1 is as mountainous as Mississippi's Highway 1 through the Delta, is flat. Most of the time, the road hangs right over the Pacific Ocean a few hundred feet below. I was sitting on the passenger side of the bus up front,on the cliff side. And I noticed as I played back my video tape that there were a few times I said "Oh my God." Out loud as we rounded another hairpin curve and all I could see out the door was a lot of air before the water below. I THOUGHT it more than I said it.

But we stopped from time to time to get still shots. And in the morning light with the sun behind us over the mountains and the sea fog just lifting, the scenery was perfect.

As I recall, there's about 35 miles of this road hanging above the Water. From Carmel to a point north of the Hurst Castle north of Santa Barbara.

We're getting into the part of California where the moisture from the Pacific is abundant enough and the air is temperate enough to start supporting the growth of the Red Wood trees. We took a side tour here just after we passed the big rock at Big Sur to see a stand of Red Woods. Next story, that's where we'll go to see the big trees and then finish up with Highway 1.