Day 15 (31 July 2016) - Cambria to Santa Barbara

We inched closer to Los Angeles as we crawled down the Pacific Coastal Highway, the point was to crawl along the road and take our time. Our next stop was Santa Barbara a small town just outside LA. The plan was to take a number of national parks along the way. Unfortunately our journey came undone by forest fires along the way which rendered all the national parks closed.

The fog was also persistent along this part of the journey so the end of July had a grey feel to the whole day it marked the half way point in our month long journey too.

Morro Bay

We first stopped off at Morro Bay, this is small town and renowned for sea otters that play in the bay of this town. If you want to get up close and personal with these creatures you can rent a kayak or paddle board in the bay. We observed from the side and the otters were playful and stinky. The bay has an enormous rock and is quite interesting to observe birds. Here are some of the shots from Morro Bay.

Pismo Beach

Parking was a real pain at Pismo beach but we parked further up and walked along the beach to the pier. There is a lot happening at Pismo beach. Our day was rather grey as you can see from the photo's below but fantastic never the less. The water was cool but it did not stop the families, most of the families were Mexican and it was obvious as we drove out as there must be a large Mexican work force on the farms that surround the coastline.

Journey down to Santa Barbara

The journey down to Santa Barbara was straight forward, for most part of the journey here you're inland as a US air force installation forces the Pacific Highway inland.

As you arrive in Santa Barbara you really are on the outskirts of LA as you can see from the map is about an hours drive in to Los Angeles. Santa Barbara has a lot of nice restaurants in town all along its main street. They do shut relatively early so Santa Barbara has not lost its sleepy town feel.