Spring Break - Day One
Day #1 - The Start That Didn’t Go as Planned
📍Hwy 101 to Hwy 1 (PCH), CA
🥾 401 miles
📈 Elevation Gain: 6,000–9,000 feet
Favorite moment: Anticipation of the start of Spring Break
There’s always that stretch of time before a trip where everything feels like it’s almost real. The planning is done. The route is set. The gear is packed (and repacked). You’ve checked the weather too many times. You’ve thought through where you’ll sleep, what you’ll eat, and how each day might unfold. And still… there’s that small part of you that knows it’s not going to go exactly how you pictured it.
Day one started early, pulling out of Dana Point with that mix of excitement and uncertainty that only comes with the beginning of a road trip. There’s something about the first few hours on the road that always feels a little surreal. Like you haven’t fully settled into the trip yet—you’re just transitioning out of your normal routine and into something else.
The plan was simple: head north, take U.S. Route 101, cut over to California State Route 1, and make my way toward Big Sur.
At least… that was the plan.
That stretch from 101 to Highway 1 never disappoints. Once you hit the coast, everything shifts. The air feels different. The views open up. The road starts winding in a way that makes you slow down whether you want to or not. It’s one of those drives where you don’t need a destination to justify it. For a while, everything felt exactly how I imagined it would.
Big Sur was supposed to be my first night, but sometimes the plan doesn’t hold. No availability. No last-minute openings, but that wasn’t going to ruin my day. Instead of forcing something that wasn’t there, I kept driving north and landed in Santa Cruz.
This wasn’t one of those “perfect camp spot” nights. It was one of those this will work nights. The ground was uneven—lumpy in a way that made you question it the second you stepped onto it. And not just uneven… it looked like something had been digging there. Like large rodents had burrowed through the entire area and left behind a landscape that felt just slightly off. This is not exactly comforting when you’re setting up a small tent on the ground, but it was a place to sleep, and sometimes, that’s enough.
Dinner was simple… Homemade pasta, reheated on the camp stove. There’s something about cooking on a camp stove that slows things down. Even when the setup isn’t ideal, it still feels intentional.
There was no view to write home about. No perfectly staged camp moment. Just sitting there, eating something familiar after a long day of driving, letting everything settle. I didn’t stay up long. There was no reason to.
Day one had already shifted more than expected, and the focus turned to the next morning. The kind of reset that only comes with sleep and an early start. So I crawled into the tent—uneven ground, questionable terrain and all—and called it a night.
It wasn’t the Big Sur night I had imagined. It wasn’t the perfect campsite. It wasn’t even comfortable, but it was the start. And sometimes, that’s all day one needs to be.
Thanks for journeying with me!
~ Bridget
