We left Santa Barbara after a great night’s sleep and a visit to the AT&T store where a friendly staffer named Andre set up Lynette’s iPad with an AT&T microsim and we activated to enable her navigator seat input while travelling.
Heading North we were able to use 3G to stream Triple J and connect to the car audio via a simple 3.5 mm connector cable we’d brought along for the trip.
A coffee stop at San Miguel, along the El Camino Real, or ‘royal highway’ showed that there are plenty of small country towns in California where teenagers sit, bored outside coffee shops, dreaming of somewhere else.
We actually had a great coffee and a quesadillo, before rejoining the 101 and keeping on our journey North through what is the largest vegetable growing area in the USA, producing a host of produce: lettuce, broccoli, strawberries etc etc.
The green vegetable fields are a stark contrast to the brown hills and dusty surrounds.
Just outside Salinas, (another song: ‘somewhere near Salinas, lord, I let her slp away….) we turn West and head for our overnight stop in Monterey, just near Cannery Row, complete with banners on streetlamp poles with quotes from Steinbeck’s novel. We’re off to sample some of the local seafood and some live music.