Loreto Mexico January 2015 | Home ...and then home again

On the road again. Yes we made it to California and to Santa Cruz, and I made it home to Edmonton. I am on the Red Arrow headed for Calgary for a birthday party.

A prairie sunset through a dirty bus window

But let me try to catch up on the drive home and some afterthoughts, and get some pictures posted.

Even though we thought we were on the outskirts of San Diego, we crawled our way through commuter traffic until things opened up on Highway 5, our main north-south route, managing to get through Los Angeles before the traffic again got too heavy.  The Central Valley is lined with vineyards from horizon to horizon: with 70% or more of California grapes grown here, it’s likely that the Napa or Sonoma wine you buy has grapes grown in this region. It looks very commercial; I watched with dismay the tractors pulling the chemical sprayers up and down the rows as we drove by. There’s just a hint of green on the vines. I’m watching for food crops (is wine not food?), to see what’s been planted (not much) and what is green. A crop of romaine lettuce, some strawberries in the ground but no plants yet and certainly no berries,  signs that point to future food sources, but not much to eat yet. We cut across to 101 and headed for Paso Robles, the centre of the Central Coast wine region made famous by the movie Sideways, and here the vineyards are smaller, but there’s also some familiar wineries, especially for us as we head north toward Santa Cruz. It’s a beautiful drive up from Paso Robles through the Salinas Valley and over to Watsonville and then to Santa Cruz.

It’s green here in Santa Cruz. Spring flowers are popping up, trees are pushing out their buds, and Margaret has her first tulip heralding the hundred or more she is expecting this spring.  A shrub-sized impatiens is bursting with pink blooms. She just picked a lime off the tree at the back door! Still, we need the heater going to stay warm, and Annie does too, and we are bundled up waiting for the midday sun to take the chill off the air. 

This was a tough 3-day drive, and although we don’t know how we might break it up differently, neither can we imagine doing that again. We logged 32 hours on the road over three days, and that’s much too much given the attentiveness required by the road conditions and mountainous terrain. We wouldn’t do it again. But would we go back to Loreto? We’re talking about it, but not sure. We obviously had a great time, and enjoyed the people and the town, but it’s eight days of travel at minimum for a four week vacation. Something to think about, for sure.  At the moment it’s just good to be home.