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Thanks for all the input. You people are great! I will check out everything suggested, except the cops, as we are on vacation! Thanks also for the surfing tip. Growing up in Minnesota I always wanted to be a California Surfer. I have been looking forward to this trip for decades! The S2000 trunk will hold two carry on size bags and a duffel bag. My wife will get one bag, I will get one bag and the duffel we will split. She is really being a good sport about this and is actually looking forward to traveling lite! I am sure we will stop at several laundrymats along the way. We have set up bed and breakfast stops at various points and are looking forward to that also. So... if you see a red/black AZ plate (rear only) S2000 with the top down zipping along, honk and wave!
Looks like you got a great selection of things to do and see already, but in case you are interested, I do recommend taking some of the side roads out past San Luis Obispo. One wonderful raod that my wife and I found was Route 46 from Hwy 1 towards 101 at Paso Pobles. You can go to Paso Robles for wine tasting at several really good wineries, (and even stay at one of a few bed and Breakfast places), then head back onto the coast. Route 46 is beautiful in that iut rides the curvy ridges of some hills so you can see valleys on both sides, and the road is just curvy enough to be fun to sightsee, yet not so curvy that you actually have to pay 100% attn to the road.
If you plan to stop by either Santa Cruz or anywhere in the Bay Area, visit the Bay Area board (http://www.bayarea.s2ki.com) and post a note with when you will be around...we have a fairly active group and will be happy to try and meet up with you if you are up for it!
Take a 10 inch long #2 phillips screwdriver with you so you can lower your headlights. You think you get flashed by oncoming traffic w/nothing in the trunk? Put a couple people and 100 lbs of stuff and you will really irritate oncoming traffic.
Do this at night with the headlights on, about 10 feet from a wall:
Open the hood. (Drivers side gently pull straight up on the coolant bottle and lean it on the radiator) With a flashlight, look through the 4 inch odd shaped hole in the fender skirt and find the back of the headlight housing. It is black plastic. Now locate what looks like a bottle cap with a 8mm bolt head in the middle. That is the adjuster. Put the screwdriver through the little 20mm round hole in the fender skirt, and contact the side of the bottle cap. Twist the screwdriver while watching the headlight beam on the wall. At 10 feet you don't want to lower it more than about an inch, otherwise you don't have a good beam on the ground.
You want the pattern to look like this
___/-------- _____/-------
Your drive sounds great, from Morro Bay to Monterey is the best.
Sounds like a great trip. I confess to being a little green! You've already gotten a lot of great comments and recommendations for along the coast. I'll point out one area that I think you'll have great fun with. It's the point where Hwy 1 turns back inland toward Hwy 101 at Leggett, CA. It's a tight little two land run that's deep in the trees and doesn't have 10' of straight road for 20 miles or so. I ran this in August of 2000 with a friend while we were on a motorcycle trip. Can't wait to do it again, motorcycle or S2k.
This is DejaVu all over again. Last September my wife and I took 10 days and drove every windy road in Cal. No problem with the luggage, we used big gym bags and did not carry the spare. My wife even brought her pillows. There are some great roads there. Really nice trees. The roads thru Yosemite and Sequoia were super. Have fun and be safe.
Dick & MaryAnn, Phoenix
We drove the coast from Mendocino to central Oregon.
Mendocino, The Avenue Of The Giants, and Ferndale are all worth a stop. There are some great twisty sections of Hwy 1 north of Mendocino until it joins 101.
Be sure that you take a few alternate roads when you get to Redwood National/State Park. It's worth spending a few hours there.
You might want to read about some of the things that I found interesting when I drove that route the other direction last year. Just follow the link in my signature. If it won't let you on, just wait an hour or so and try again. (I'm not willing to pay for unlimited bandwidth. )
07-31-2002 | 10:00 AM
You've already gotten a lot of great comments and recommendations for along the coast. I'll point out one area that I think you'll have great fun with. It's the point where Hwy 1 turns back inland toward Hwy 101 at Leggett, CA. It's a tight little two land run that's deep in the trees and doesn't have 10' of straight road for 20 miles or so. I ran this in August of 2000 with a friend while we were on a motorcycle trip. Can't wait to do it again, motorcycle or S2k.
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