Plan A, mostly

[howeird]

Last morning in Morro Bay, the plan was to take Hwy 1 up the coast to Hwy 46, and there to 101 with a stop for lunch somewhere.

Checked out of the motel a little before 10, made one false start along the embarcadero, forgetting that Hwy 1 is not on the coast at that point. GPS found it for me. Hwy 46 was quite a ways up there, but I knew that, and it was the well-designed road I expected it to be. A much safer route than the shorter Hwy 41. Since it's a true 55 mph all the way, not riddled with curves like 41, Hwy 46 only took a little bit longer to get to 101.

Somewhere along 101 my left eye started feeling irritated. Maybe I got some sunscreen on there when I applied it at a viewpoint on 46. Maybe it was an eyelash. Either way, I pulled off at some little town, long enough to use the water bottle as an eyewash. It seemed to work, but after another few minutes of driving the eye was stinging again. I had broken my best driving sunglasses on the final whale trip, and had bought replacements at a boutique and at Rite Aid, one of them grey UV ones the other amber polarized ones, both aviator style. I switched them, and that seemed to help.

King City was a stop for gas, the trip meter hit 300 miles, but it took 9 gallons.33 mpg, not very good for highway. The guage did not show the tank that low, it was not even down to 1/4. The gas station shared a parking lot with Denny's, so I had lunch there, after pulling my bottle of artificial tears out of the luggage and giving both eyes a couple of doses. By the time lunch was done, my eyes were fine.

Back on the road, between Gilroy and Morgan hill I was fading, but just taking an exit and slowing down, and stopping at some stop lights was enough to cure the highway hypnosis. And boosting the air conditioning because it was around 90° out there. Odd, the weather in the central valley was cooler than Silicon valley today.

Home, both cats tried to escape outside. Kaan came back in when I yelled at him, Domino never made it out the door, she is not very fast.

Unpacked, and spent the afternoon and evening processing the photos, which are now in several sets on Flickr:
Mission San Juan Bautista: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635165666708/

VisionQuest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635159368937/ which includes one I think lemmozine will like:


Mission San Miguel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635159784691/ and the photo I went for:


Morro Bay: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635159929323/ (a short set, which includes a Coast Guard boat with a sailboat lashed alongside)

Whales (and sea lions and lots of birds): http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635160088481/ 

Hwy 46 viewpoint: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635168545822/

I also spent 25 minutes on chat with amazon.com because their system would not let me return the Fire HD. Last night I got to the point where I could print out a UPS label, but I didn't have a printer. Tonight I had a printer but it wouldn't get me to that point, it kept referring me to support. The bozoid on the other end of the chat did not understand anything, and spent way too much time between responses. Finally got it done, and will send that puppy back tomorrow.


And it's only 10:15.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
UPS, return the Kindle Fire
???

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

A song you might like. Tried to find free on youtube, couldn't. It's 99 cents. Sorry.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=uncle+bonsai+day+old+whale

[howeird]

Thanks - I have that on a CD somewhere.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Uncle Bonsai are local to Seattle and popular among filkers - I wonder what it would take to get them to play at Conflikt.

[howeird]

I saw them in Santa Cruz recently. Conflikt probably couldn't afford them, but Consonance maybe could. But then again, looking on their web site they are doing a CD release tour all round the Seattle area October-November. http://www.unclebonsai.com/concerts.htm so maybe Conflikt is possible.