Down Highway 1 (18 pictures)

[Scarecrow]

I formatted all pictures to 800x600 (or apparently they came out as 800x531??) I apologize in advance it you have to scroll left and right to see them (a pet peeve of mine). If someone would enlighten me to a more appropriate size, I'll do that for future pictures.)

 

I wanted to take a run down the coast, Highway 1 and take pictures along the way. Started from the house on a bright sunny morning, a little cool, perfect riding weather. I was looking forward to the scenery and for once planned to stop often along the way and take pictures. I was going to zip down 680, 101, 156 into Monterey and then down 1 from there.

 

Well, it started out sunny but by the time I approached Monterey it was totally overcast, windy and chilly. I had left the liner of my jacket behind figuring it would be in the 80-90's and I would not need it. Wrong!! Fortunately I did have a sweatshirt with me and when I stopped in Monterey for lunch was grateful for it.

 

South out of Monterey, still overcast with heavy gray cloud cover. But eventually the sun peeked out and I started seeing ocean, waves, and half a sky. Nice rocky shore, blue water with white caps crashing on the rocks.

 

Stopped again a little later on for this view...

 

This is one where a stream makes it out to the ocean.

 

And another shot looking down on the shore from the cliffs above.

 

I was trying to balance the nice ride with how many stops for pictures I was making. Here are a couple looking back north from where I came on one of the bridges 1 goes over.

 

Hard to get tired of the sights...

Tried to get the waves behind the bike, but couldn't get the right angle.

 

This is what the shore looked like just beyond the bike.

 

At that point I figured I'd never make it to San Luis Obispo (SLO) stopping every few miles so just went back to riding. But as I neared the San Simeon area, I saw out on the beach many many seals basking, but no place to stop for the pictures. But just a mile or two later there was a vista point and I took a bunch of shots...

 

pass the suntan oil please...

 

These guys were just playing dominance games, but neither was too serious about it.

 

This guy looks like he's shedding his skin. Maybe he thinks he's part snake.

 

More play time...

 

and one last look up the beach.

 

 

From there it was a quick hop to SLO where I stayed overnight.

 

Heading back the next day I debated going back the way I came, or just zipping up 101. I decided to try my luck on 1 again, wanting more pictures. My luck was bad; it was absolutely socked in gray overcast fog the whole way back to Monterey. I could usually make out a few hundred feet of road, but that was about it. Not one glimpse of ocean. I felt sorry for the tourists who had heard that Hwy 1 was beautiful and a 'must see'. Believe me, they saw nothing this day. The only patch of sun was as the road left the coast for a little inland jog to Big Sur. Then it was blue sky again. For about 10 miles before we were back at the socked in coast.

 

Well, maybe some future time I'll get luckier.

 

(and if anyone could advise me on how to brighten up my shots, I'd appreciate that too. I shoot with a Nikon D70 and it seems to always shoot on the dark side whether I use

the Automatic, Picture, Speed or Aperture settings)

[Sellis]

Thanks for the great pictures, sure brought back some memories, I spend a lot of time in that area in the mid 70s, opps, I'm giving away my age! Anyway, I enjoyed seeing the area again

[Carnadero]

..it was absolutely socked in gray overcast fog the whole way back to Monterey. I could usually make out a few hundred feet of road, but that was about it.

That's the one big turnoff about being anywhere near the coast out here in the summertime. If the fog doesn't roll out by 10:00 or so, it's not likely to roll out at all, or the interval of sun will be very brief, and the gray gloom returns quickly.

 

After a lifetime spent here, I have come to really, really hate fog.

 

(and if anyone could advise me on how to brighten up my shots, I'd appreciate that too. I shoot with a Nikon D70 and it seems to always shoot on the dark side whether I use

the Automatic, Picture, Speed or Aperture settings)

If it has exposure compensation, set it to +1, although it seems that what you are shooting is rather contrasty, in which case if you shoot for the darker areas the lighter areas will get washed out. Graduated filters and spot metering capability would help here.

[dhb]

Have you set your monitor up for proper gray scale and color balance? I use a Spyder 2 to do this and found your pix very nicely exposed. The color balance is a bit too cool, but this is a property of the light and not the camera. I really enjoyed looking at this familiar country again. Nice job.

Take care,

Dave

[murrayg]

OOOHHHAHHHHH I wanna go there. It looks like great fun, great, roads and great beauty. Thanks for sharing the ride and the pics.

[jgrant]

Great pics! I do love that highway. Thanks for posting for those of us who don't up there too often.

[ADulay]

Thanks for the pics.

 

Highway 1 is now officially on my list of things to do in the near future.

 

AD

[leikam]

I can smell those sea lions from here...

[gottago]

Thanks for the great pictures. We tend to ride this road a lot in summer and sometimes take it for granted. Thanks for capturing it's beauty and making me realize how lucky we are to have this in our backyard.