California State Route 1
If you’re unlucky, you’ll drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco on the interstate in 6 hours.
If you’re lucky, you can spend several days traveling along the coastal road California 1, absorbing every mile and making stops in all the towns along the way.
The author spent only two days on the road, staying overnight in a small town near Silicon Valley.
That was a fatal mistake: there isn’t enough time to properly take anything in. The trip needs at least a week.
Santa Barbara
Not far from Los Angeles is the small town of Santa Barbara.
An absolutely lovely, tranquil American province with a Mexican influence.
They filmed a famous soap opera in this city, but nobody knows exactly where the arches from the intro video are located. Such arches can be found on every other house here.
In general, the city is recognizable. Something similar was shown in the opening credits.
A mountain range can be seen in the distance.
By the way, it’s December outside.
In Santa Barbara, you can drive with the convertible top down at any time of the year. Rainfall is rare, and in winter, temperatures can reach up to +20 degrees Celsius.
An affordable house in Santa Barbara.
An expensive house in Santa Barbara.
The city market.
The movie theater. All American movie theaters are designed with a roof shaped like half a hexagon.
The central square of the city is decorated for Christmas.
One of the most delightful details in festive America is the adorned lanterns. Palm trees with Christmas wreaths are a bit mind-bending.
The flags of the United States and the Republic of California.
“Skateboarding is prohibited.”
Local transport: a minibus.
The “One way” sign and the “Right lane must turn right” sign. In other languages it’s hard to put that concisely, so they have to use pictograms.
Street names are set into the sidewalk in copper letters in a concrete frame.
A sign on a juice store.
A newspaper machine.
Fire hydrants in California are yellow.
A tourist.
Harbor
Sign: “Santa Barbara harbour.” Street lamps of such design were present in California a hundred years ago, except the post was not made of concrete back then.
The harbor turned out to be very lively. There are so many ships that the horizon is obscured by masts.
Dozens of flags from different countries and organizations.
Oil rigs can be seen far out in the ocean.
Santa Barbarans love surfing.
Nature
Sometimes it’s worth taking a short detour from Route 1 to catch a glimpse of the mountain ranges.
Every corner of California is incredibly beautiful.
You can stop anywhere. All the best viewpoints have parking, rest areas, and observation decks.
The landscape changes every half an hour, transitioning smoothly from mountains to the ocean and back.
That’s why Americans stop every kilometer, and why the trip can take a whole week. It’s impossible to resist such beauty.
The “Stop” sign in America should mean “Stop... and look around.”
Rest area and a picnic spot.
Yes, it’s true that in the US you can’t just go into the wilderness and start a campfire. Probably because no one would think of doing such a foolish thing when there’s a sunset ocean nearby with all conveniences.
A random pier somewhere along the way.
To watch the sunset, people stop at any place.
They leave their cars and come out to watch.
California sunsets are divine.
San Luis Obispo
A small town somewhere along the way to San Francisco.
Here I found signs in Celtic uncial script, almost like in Ireland.
And an alley completely covered in chewing gum.
Los Altos
A small, quiet American town with a population of 30,000. You can’t tell at first glance: people seem to live quite modestly, but the streets are clean.
A decent house for Los Altos.
The town is known as the place where Steve Jobs grew up and founded his company. Right here, in this modest one-story house, in the garage.
Surprisingly, there were no queues of pilgrims here. Just a house in a simple village. As a precaution, there is a “No trespassing” sign.
That’s how the history of the world’s wealthiest company began in an ordinary village. Other countries try to imitate this, not realizing that the United States simply created an open economy that found its geniuses and brought them out of the village on its own.
Cupertino
Cupertino’s flagship company is Apple. The old campus of the company has a rather unique architecture.
The address of the campus is Infinite Loop, 1.
There is a store near the campus. No discounts, taxes are the same as everywhere else.
What did I have in Krasnogorsk? A mechanical plant that sold Zenit cameras at a discount.
