Day 11: HOMECOMING!

When we woke up this morning, the tension was unbearable. There we were, itching to get to La Casa de Ocho, but a few hours and a few hundred miles stood between us and it. See, The Ocho was stir crazy for Cali, and her amigos were worried she'd go insane. Thank goodness La Casa was in striking distance, but man, it was so far away. The tension was just unbearable.

Finally, we made it! After ~4,500 miles explored, we cruised into Monterey around 7pm today. We were greeted by a homemade sign on the door and two Ricks (and a Nonnie!) that were even happier to see us than Ruby and Bozeman, if that is possible. We were also greeted by a display of IPAs that numbered somewhere in the range of "7, plus or minus one million" (direct quote from LT2). This was a glorious and delicious way to land at our West Coast Recovery Base.

It was a beautiful day to drive up the coast, one which we started a bit later that desired due to our reluctance to leave our Tustin hosts. A surprisingly quick trip through LA ran us into the Pacific Coast Highway and provided the Amigos quite a sight for sore eyes: the miraculous Pacific Ocean! The Ocho almost started bawling but refrained when she remembered she was driving. Keeping the blue horizon to our left, we took the scenic Highway 1 route from Redondo Beach all the way up through the Big Sur coast. We stopped for a bite at In-n-Out, a Cali staple (for the record, LT2 was not impressed; must compare to 5 Guys at some point during the trip!), and a driver change.

The only other stop was in San Simeon to take a peek at the elephant seals there. They put on quite a show as the juvenile males challenged each other with gargles and body slams, and generally throwing around their gargantuan girth. (Rip Van Winkle made a mental note to friend these beasts on Facebook as soon as he was next near a computer.) On the universal scale of mythical creatures, elephant seals rank with ostriches and petroglyph birds as the most impressive animals ever.

But not even the elephant seals could stop our momentum north. We busted on through and landed at La Casa, as described above, for the most glorious welcome to Cali that we could have imagined. The Ocho is a celebrity here, and her three amigos are excited to get the celebrity tour. West Coast Recovery Base, over and out.