Great drives: California Route 1

You can get from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a 400-odd mile journey, in any number of ways.  Over the years I’ve tried most of them — trains, planes and automobiles:  the wonderful old Southern Pacific Daylight, the frequent air shuttles (Western Airlines once did it for $12) and several combinations of highways.  

When I lived in Los Angeles in the early 1960s (the Beach Boys!  Jan and Dean!), a motorist could choose between U.S. 101, a partly coastal route via Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Salinas; and U.S. 99, now California 99, which runs up the green but boring Central Valley through Bakersfield, Fresno and Modesto.  

The newer addition is Interstate 5, a superb work of engineering that parallels CA 99 and retraces the famous Grapevine, which twists sinuously through the Tehachapi Mountains—the north- and southbound lanes are on opposite sides of the  4,183-foot Tejon Pass—from the Los Angeles basin to the rich agricultural center of California. It’s the fastest way, but north of the Grapevine it’s the least scenic.

The prize route of all is a detour off U.S. 101 from San Luis Obispo through Monterey on California 1, one of the great drives of the world.  It takes you past William Randolph Hearst’s vulgar but impressive castle in San Simeon and along the spectacularly indented central California coastline to Big Sur, mecca for hippies, home of Esalen and haven for energetic hikers.  

The vistas are breathtaking. The roadway twists through 20-mph switchbacks and, in springtime, over washouts under repair after the heavy winter rains—which also produce a fine floral display in the meadows along the highway. (Once, returning to Los Angeles after dinner with friends in Monterey, a fresh washout forced us to turn back north below Big Sur and retrace our route to pick up 101 in Salinas. It was a long night on the road.)

A month ago, I left Los Angeles right after the morning rush hour and quickly got on the Ventura Freeway, U.S. 101.  Once you’re clear of exurbia, it rewards you with a splendid 30-mile stretch of oceanfront stretching nearly to Santa Barbara.  Terraced headlands alternate with imposing stands of eucalyptus, palm trees and cypress.

Then my not always totally trusty Garmin Nüvi GPS navigation device proposed what I’d least expected:  instead of staying on U.S. 101, I should take the CA 154 cutoff through the Santa Ynez mountains—a glorious detour I had discovered for myself years ago.

CA 154 isn’t quite in a league with CA 1, but it’s nonetheless a beauty.  It’s a handsomely engineered two-lane that shoots up in a few short miles from sea level to San Marcos Pass (elevation 2,225 feet). There are turnouts to get around the inevitable RVs, and sweeping curves that provide ever-diminishing vistas of the distant Pacific. Over the pass, you quickly find great views to the north and west, including the impressive Cachuma Lake reservoir.

A treat just before you rejoin U.S. 101, bypassing the faux-Danish tourist trap at Solvang, is the Los Olivos Grocery. It’s seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but it offers top-of-the-line deli sandwiches, fresh produce and a major selection of wines that emphasize the local proprietors.  Two regional favorites of mine: Qupé, which makes a great syrah, and Au Bon Climat, producers of killer chardonnay and pinot noir (its sales weren’t hurt by the film “Sidewaysâ€�).

After that it’s a short run to the junction in San Luis Obispo with CA 1, an even more breathtaking drive.  There’s the striking 576-foot Morro Rock just off the coast, a curious dome-shaped volcanic formation; the prospect is seriously marred by a massive PG&E power plant next door.

But things get better as four lanes shrink to two and the serious coastal road begins. It’s not long before you reach a road sign that warns:  ROCK SLIDE AREA NEXT 60 MILES.  

Yes!

It’s highway heaven, all of the nearly 100 miles to Carmel. It’s the Amalfi coast without the traffic and the horn-blowing buses:  sheer drops to the sea, hairpin turns, relatively few trivial diversions for tourists. I revisited Nepenthe, a wonderfully sited property near Big Sur that was Orson Welles’s wedding gift to Rita Hayworth.  

When I knew it and its hospitable owners in the early 1960s, Nepenthe was a delightful restaurant oasis complete with an open-air fire pit and generous drinks. On one incredibly bright and memorable moonlight night, I drove most of the way back to Monterey after dinner there with the top down and my headlights off.  Well, I was 28 and, believe it or not, reasonably sober.

Nepenthe has now been tarted up with a tourist shop that sells the decidedly variable work of local artists and artisans, many of them latter-day heirs of the Beats and hippies who gave the area much of its original mystique.

But the views remain, there and all along the coast, thanks largely to a longstanding building moratorium that has kept this treasure largely unspoiled. I’ve driven this fantastic stretch of CA 1 at least half a dozen times, and it’s still as spine-tingling as ever. I wouldn’t recommend it at night in the winter rainy season, but in summer by moonlight. . . .

A footnote on fuel prices

In late March and early April, in addition to 800 miles or so on the Auto Train to Florida, I drove 3,334 miles from Sharon to San Francisco via Florida, Texas, Arizona and southern California. The cheapest gasoline I bought was on the New Jersey Turnpike ($3.049 a gallon for regular) and the most expensive was in Carmel, Calif. ($3.839). In isolated Gorda Springs, just south of Big Sur, regular went for an astonishing $5.399—and premium for $5.599, doubtless the highest price in the 48 contiguous states.  For now, that is.

© 2008 by Keith R. Johnson.  A retired senior editor of Fortune, Johnson lives in Sharon. Wheels appears monthly.