#414a 2 day trip south to experience Hwy 1 Big Sur

We wanted to experience the Big Sur using Highway 1. We had once thought maybe we should just go from San Francisco to Neal Taylor one coastal highway 1. That would have been a big mistake. Hwy 1 is meant for are smaller cars and people who are brave in smaller trucks. It's just better to leave the rig somewhere else and do this and just the car or in our case the truck. We had done enough research to realize this. We would leave Tres Pino's on a two-day Excursion and would stop about halfway and Cambria and then spend the night and then go forward to Monterey the next day and back to Tres Pinos.

We went on down and through the country and it was a lot of switchbacks and crazy roads but then we got to the vicinity of Morro Bay and fueled up and we were ready to start experiencing Highway 1 against the rocky coastline.

A few days prior I had been looking for a hotel reservation and there was all kinds of availability at around two hundred a night. Most everything in the Morro Bay Area with a hundred and fifty so I looked for Airbnb I just couldn't find any good prices. A number of Airbnb sites were actually motel rooms which I thought was very strange. Finally, I looked at Craigslist thinking maybe I can find something for rent by owner, and the good and the bad of it is I did I found a rather incredible site. It was a private house with an ocean view by owner for about a hundred and fifty. They did require a 700. refundable deposit for damages but that was okay with me.

I reached out and they contacted me and it all seemed legit to me and they sent us a contract a lease agreement to sign and they were quick to respond. They could not take credit cards and that's when I should have walked away they said they needed to use Zelle and I thought to myself oh I've used that before. The sad part is I started to really want the house and I would do anything to get it which is absolutely stupid because I would later find out I had been scammed. Everything was signed I had sent the money and they had received it everything was a go and it was about 9 in the morning on our check-in date and I just called to make sure I knew how to get the key. From this point on I started getting radio silence. The house was in Cambria which is just around the corner from Saint Simeon which is where the Hearst castle is. It's a tourist attraction but there's a long story behind Randolph Hearst. He was a racist scumbag and ran huge newspapers in the early 1900s.

We arrived at the property at around noon and just started kind of hoping to find a lockbox or a note on the back door or something. When none of this happened so we begin to just not know what to do.

I typed the address into the internet just to see if I could find out better who was managing it and it was a real estate company in Cambria. I contacted the company and said we're here to check into your property but we're not real clear on how to get the key. The lady that answered the phone said we don't have anyone checking in today. I said but I've already paid my money in advance plus a deposit. She said I'm sorry to have to tell you this but you've been scammed and it happens all the time.

I didn't want to believe it but this is us losing $850, 150 for the night and a $700 security deposit.

I had even looked up reviews for the person that gave me the lease agreement and all the reviews were glowing for this property and I couldn't understand what was going on. It seems I was reading the legitimate reviews for the property from when it had been rented out by the real estate company. Since they stole the entire website it looked like it the reviews were for this person but they were reviews for the legit real estate company. I was had a Hook Line & Sinker and it kind of stinks.

They suggested I can call the sheriff and file a report and I did. Although I could get the SBI to look into it I don't think the local sheriff can do much and that was a real bummer.

We went on up the way and I found a hotel room for about a hundred and fifty that was perfectly wonderful. We could have done that all along and not been scammed but I usually have to learn the hard way.

No matter how long you dwell on it doesn't get any better so we just went ahead and checked in and got a bite to eat and enjoyed the area. I suppose we were trying to pretend it didn't happen but it did so we just enjoyed the rest of our evening. Our room had a view of the ocean and a fireplace so that was romantic.

The next morning and went to a cool breakfast place and everybody was so friendly there. Now we were on the road that is considered Big Sur from here on out. It was very wiggly and hugged the coast and just past the shoulder was a big drop off a rocky cliff. I had intentionally gone from south to north so I would be on the safer side of the highway instead of the pretty terrifying cliff side.

We saw something on maps as we were looking that talked about an elephant seal refuge and viewing area. We went by and had a nice talk with some volunteers at a small museum called the friends of the elephant seals. They gave us information and told us where to go to see the seals. We took lots of pictures as they were sparring. I was told that's not the same as fighting it's more like a mock fight for later on whenever they get serious during the mating season and that's when it gets bloody and deadly. For now, it's mostly the younger males just practicing.

That was quite interesting so we went on up the way and just saw a lot sorts of beautiful views and pacific vistas.

We entered into the area of some redwoods and this would be the most southern point where redwoods grow in California. The forest is narrow at about 50 miles wide and stretches to the extreme southwestern corner of Oregon. We parked at the Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park and had a nice two-mile hike, it was very beautiful. I tried to get a few redwood tree pictures. The whole area had burned a while back and been closed for quite some time for repairs and re-nourishment.

It had opened recently and they built a big set of stairs. We did a lot but not quite all of them as it was a lot. That would wrap up this part and we got back on the road and headed towards Monterey.

Everything we saw was very pretty and I just really enjoyed this trip. As we arrived in Monterey I saw some mention of Cannery Row. I told India, oh my god, that was required reading for us in junior high but I've seen the film with Nick Nolte and Debra Winger and it was so good so hey we've got to go see Cannery Row. We did and it was fascinating and it was so cool to be riding down the road described in the book. I had read and now experienced the story and that was so cool.

We went on up to the top of a vista to a county park that mentioned RV sites. It was quite a hilly and narrow residential road to get there and I realized more and more this was not for big rigs. We had to let that go for future visits. We checked one other park but they wouldn't let us go and do a quick look because they said everybody wanted to so they turned us around unless we wanted to pay the day-use fee so we skipped that. We got a bite to eat it was getting on towards the dark now but it was only an hour from Monterey back to Tres Pinos. We got back home and just took a breath. It was quite an interesting two-day trip but I'm so glad we did it and it was wonderful in every way except for the scam part. The next day we would leave out and I decided to go against the advice of maps and take the longer route through Hollister. It would add 20 minutes but the road conditions were so much more big rig friendly.