I was back in San Leandro, this time with a little more time to kill so on a whim I decided to drive out to Big Basin Redwoods State Park since the roads looked twisty and being the oldest state park in California I assumed it would be quite scenic. I took the route at random and the first part was very pretty but quite tight and with lots of speed warnings so it was more just a casual cruise through a bunch of gorgeous scenery. The north end of the loop past the entry to the park is barely a car and a half wide. There weren't many places to pull over so not a lot of chances to take pictures but I still got a few.
This is the loop I took:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/kk5LtNDmupMbJSK68
Latest pic of your rental Camry
Once I joined Highway 9 though, everything was different. The road was wider and clearly it's popular with the locals because I've never seen such a high concentration of sports cars and bikes. Everything from Miatas to Lambos was zipping around and I passed 3 separate car meets in various pullouts.
On the way down Skyline Blvd I did a quick hike up to Summit Rock thinking the view should be pretty good for such a short trail. This is what greeted me at the top:
Ok not a great view but you can peek around and see San Jose (I think) a bit
You could see where people had climbed around the rock to the other side but it looked a bit sketchy and being solo I didn't want to end up being a dumbass tourist who got into a pickle because I didn't know the area.
I kept going down the highway to Santa Cruz thinking I could grab dinner there but it was so crowded I gave up after probably 30 mins of trying to find a parking spot downtown. I did snag this before taking the highway back.
The next day I decided I wanted to check out part of Highway 1 down the coast so I headed over to Half Moon Bay and down to Santa Cruz again. That was an absolutely gorgeous cruise. When the sun was close to setting I stopped at the next beach which happened to be Gazos Creek State Beach just south of Pigeon Point which was completely deserted apart from some birds. I froze my toes off in the ocean but the weather with great otherwise.
I think I have nicer shots of the Camry than of my own car. Rolling into Santa Cruz I didn't want to take the highway again and I had a better idea of how to find the good back roads now so I took Highway 9. Santa Cruz to Felton was a great section of very tight and twisty road, then from Felton to Boulder Creek it was more of a gentle cruise since it's pretty constant residential properties. Once out of Boulder Creek though it was basically deserted and a more spirited drive. A GR WRX and two IS300s caught up to me so I used a pullout as soon as I could and then they were just gone. Rolling into Saratoga was a nice surprise as the first couple blocks as you come in from that direction are all very pretty and nicely lit up at night. Looking on a map it's not something I would've expected since as far as I can tell it's on the edge of a suburb of a suburb of San Jose.
Here's the loop I took that time:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gZwC3TgvGndWzjD48
The last day that I had some time I didn't have as much so I just went for a short loop, the road from Kings Mountain to Tunitas was very tight but extremely pretty. As I came to expect Skyline Blvd had some gorgeous views.
I'd love to spend more time in that area in a better car. The Camry did great for what it was but it's still just an automatic sedan lol. I always thought a trip down the coast sounded neat but this just made it a solid bucket list item. I saw more nice cars than I could shake a stick at, the IS300 seems to be quite popular down there and I saw a lot of Rivians on the highway to/from Santa Cruz.