Highway 101: Los Angeles to Salinas

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Los Angeles

   Route 66 does not end in a blaze of glory. After more than three thousand kilometres from Chicago, the old highway frays into the boulevards of Los Angeles, and its last stretch is a patchwork of Foothill Boulevard, Colorado Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard, ending officially at the pier in Santa Monica, with the Pacific beyond. The point on the map here is the old centre, where the city began in 1781 as a Spanish pueblo, and a few blocks of adobe buildings and a Mexican market street, Olvera Street, are still standing, near the grand Spanish-style Union Station, which opened in 1939.

   Read the complete Los Angeles write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Los Angeles is where the day begins. Next is Ventura.

2. 2. Ventura

   Mission San Buenaventura, founded in 1782 by Father Junípero Serra, was the last of the missions he established, and its church and garden are a quiet, peaceful corner in the middle of the town. Ventura Pier, built in 1872, is the longest wooden pier in California, a long wooden promenade that pokes out into the Pacific, and fishermen and walkers stroll along it.

   Read the complete Ventura write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ventura comes up about 233 km into the recorded legs. Next is Santa Barbara.

3. 3. Santa Barbara

   The Pacific Coast Highway has a way of ending in places that look like film sets, and Santa Barbara is the best of them. The city sits on a narrow shelf of land between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the ocean, facing south, which is unusual on the Californian coast, so the sun seems to hang over the water in the afternoon. The red tile roofs, white stucco walls and arched arcades are not an accident. After an earthquake in 1925 destroyed much of downtown, the city rebuilt in a unified Spanish Colonial Revival style, and the result is a place that feels more like Andalusia than Los Angeles.

   Read the complete Santa Barbara write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 347 km into the recorded legs you reach Santa Barbara. Next is San Luis Obispo.

4. 4. San Luis Obispo

   San Luis Obispo is a small city of about forty-seven thousand people, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and for riders on the coast it is a natural place to rest. It lies in a valley of the Santa Lucia foothills, a short way inland from the Pacific, with hills of oak and grass rising on all sides. Franciscan friar Junipero Serra founded Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa here in 1772, and the mission church still stands on the central plaza, next to a creek that runs through the downtown.

   Read the complete San Luis Obispo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   San Luis Obispo, late in the day. Next is Salinas.

5. 5. Salinas

   John Steinbeck was born in Salinas in 1902, and the town has never quite decided whether to be proud or embarrassed about it. His novels, from Of Mice and Men to East of Eden, drew on the valley and its farm workers, and some locals were angry at how he portrayed them. Today the National Steinbeck Center in the old downtown tells his story with exhibits, a replica of a boxcar and a reconstruction of the writer's fishing boat. His childhood home, a Victorian house, has been turned into a restaurant, and his grave lies in the town cemetery.

   Read the complete Salinas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Salinas. That is the ride.