ROAD TRIP 1990–1992
A Day Spent Chasing the Pacific
May 1991—an era before GPS navigation and smartphones. Armed with nothing more than a paper road map, I set out on a road trip across America.
On this day, I drove approximately 440 miles (710 km) from Sacramento to Santa Maria. That distance is roughly equivalent to traveling from Tokyo to Okayama in Japan.
Looking back now, it was a day spent simply driving westward and southward, chasing the ocean mile after mile.
▶ Day 1 Reflection | Looking Back on the Day the Journey Began
Looking Back on Day 1: What Do We Remember, and What Do We Forget?
On the morning I left Sacramento, a young traveler set out westward toward the Pacific Ocean. He crossed long bridges, drove through forests, felt a surge of excitement at the sight of the ocean for the first time, and stood in awe before the cliffs of Big Sur. Late that night, he finally collapsed onto a hotel bed. All of it had happened within a single day.
Yet thirty-five years later, what remained was not only the memory of spectacular scenery. It was also the brief encounters with strangers whose names I never knew, the scent carried by the wind, and the rhythmic sound of tires passing over the joints in the pavement.
The first day of the road trip taught me something unexpected: what endures in memory is not simply the fact that we traveled far, but the small moments that stay with us long after the journey has ended.
Articles from Day 1
1. The Beginning of a Road Trip Across the American West (1991)
That morning, I left my apartment in Sacramento behind. Loaded with paper maps, rolls of slide film, a large ice chest, and even a rice cooker, the car headed west. The journey toward the California Route 1 I had long dreamed of was far more than a simple drive. It marked the beginning of a day when I would step beyond the world I had only known through television and movies, and into America itself.
2. The San Mateo–Hayward Bridge and a Quiet Silicon Valley (1991)
The car that had departed Sacramento passed through the Bay Area, crossed the still-quiet Silicon Valley, and finally reached the gateway to the mountains leading toward the Pacific. The destination was still ahead, yet within the span of half a day, the scenery had transformed again and again—from agricultural country to a vast metropolitan region, from bayside landscapes to suburban neighborhoods, and then to rolling pastoral hills. The road trip was already beginning to teach me that its true appeal lies not only in the destination, but in everything encountered along the way.
3. Woodside: The Cowboy Who Appeared in a Supermarket Parking Lot (1991)
I had set out in search of the ocean, yet the journey had already prepared an unexpected detour. Beside the quiet expanse of Silicon Valley remained towns where horses crossed the roads and cowboys rode into the supermarket to do their shopping. To discover that a way of life rooted in the nineteenth century still endured alongside a region that symbolized the future was a revelation for a young traveler.
4. Woodside: Where Silicon Valley Meets Cowboy Culture (1991)
Although I had been heading west in search of the ocean, the journey introduced me time and again to entirely different Californias along the way. Beside Silicon Valley, where cutting-edge technologies were being forged, there were towns where horses crossed the roads and hay trucks rolled by. Deeper in the forest stood crossroads where Harley riders gathered. California was not a single landscape, but a vast mosaic where different eras and cultures overlapped and coexisted.
5. The Red Barn of La Honda Creek Preserve (1991)
The journey did not begin at an airport or a famous landmark. It began with a solitary red barn standing beyond the forests of Route 84. There were no people, no livestock—only open grasslands, the wind, and an overwhelming stillness. Yet that landscape was the very image of America I had carried in my imagination since childhood. It was there, for the first time, that the gears of the journey quietly began to fall into place.
6. San Gregorio: Chasing the Memory of the Wind (1991)
As the road descended through the mountains, the air began to change. The scent of the forest gradually gave way to the smell of the sea, and even before the ocean came into view, my body sensed the presence of the Pacific ahead. Then, in a silence so profound that only the ringing in my ears remained, I discovered for the first time both the freedom and the loneliness that inhabit the vast expanse called America.
7. San Gregorio: The Story of the Stage Stop (1991)
As I drew closer to the Pacific, the landscape seemed to rewind from the future into the past. The road that had begun in Silicon Valley led through horse country, past a solitary red barn, and eventually arrived in the era of stagecoaches. It was there, for the first time on the journey, that I turned the car around not by following a map, but by trusting my instincts. I could not explain why. I only knew that if I drove past that small cabin without stopping, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
8. San Gregorio General Store 94074: A Living Time Capsule (1991)
At a small post office that had served travelers since 1889, I wrote a postcard to myself. Paper maps, rolls of film, postcards—the journey of 1991 was not recorded as data the way it is today, but was instead a series of acts meant to preserve moments in time. That little post office, discovered along the road to the ocean, became a time capsule connecting my past self, my present self, and the person I would one day become.
9. San Gregorio State Beach: Where Route 84 Ends and the Pacific Begins (1991)
Route 84 was a time machine traveling into the past. It carried me through the age of stagecoaches, to a post office that had stood since 1889, and over the final ridge where the Pacific suddenly revealed itself. Yet what awaited there was not a frozen piece of history, but the living present—people laughing on the beach, playing in the sand, and embracing the ocean. In that moment, I was no longer a spectator. I had become a traveler living within a California afternoon of my own.
10. San Gregorio State Beach: Past, Present, and Future at the End of Route 84 (1991)
When I pulled over at San Gregorio State Beach, the journey was far from over. The San Gregorio Creek, which had accompanied Route 84 to the sea, slipped quietly into the Pacific, while wind-sculpted cypress trees spoke of the ever-changing coastline of the present. Beyond the hills, Route 1 awaited, stretching toward the future. Past, present, and future were captured together within a single frame of Velvia, and with the sound of that final shutter, the first chapter called Route 84 came quietly to a close.
11. South San Mateo County Coast: My First Drive on California Route 1 (1991)
Route 84 had been a time machine into the past. Route 1, however, was something entirely different. The moment I crested the hill, the ocean and the rolling countryside burst into view at once, and the world suddenly opened wide before me. To the right lay the wild Pacific; to the left, a pastoral landscape that felt almost like paradise. Even in the face of such breathtaking scenery, I never pulled over, choosing instead to keep driving toward the next curve. Perhaps it was simply the impulse of youth. Looking back now, what remains most vivid is not the landscape itself, but the sound of the wind that streamed endlessly through the open window.
12. Santa Cruz: Coffee, Doughnuts, and a Full Tank of Freedom (1991)
By the time I reached the Pacific and began driving along Route 1, I was still little more than a spectator, watching America from the outside. But at a gas station in Santa Cruz, as I poured a cup of coffee, picked out a donut, filled the tank, and wiped down the windows, I found myself stepping, if only slightly, into the rhythm of everyday life in this country. A self-service society was not cold or impersonal at all; it was a place where small acts of kindness were exchanged naturally. Before I realized it, I was holding a door open for someone else. This was not a discovery of scenery, but a discovery of the way people lived.
13. Santa Cruz: The Day a Payphone Changed the Journey (1991)
At a gas station in Santa Cruz, I booked a hotel room from a pay phone. It was only a single phone call, yet from that moment on, the journey subtly changed. What I had reserved was not merely a room, but a future I was now committed to reaching. Until then, I had been a traveler free to alter my plans whenever the mood struck. But the moment I placed the receiver back on its cradle, the journey began to carry a measure of responsibility. Looking back thirty-five years later, I sometimes wonder if that call was not a hotel reservation at all, but a reservation for the purpose of the journey itself.
14. Monterey and Carmel: The Places I Never Reached (1991)
When I finally reached the Pacific and began driving along Route 1, I had at last stepped into the landscapes I had long dreamed of. Yet the moment I booked that hotel room, the journey acquired its first real obligation. Monterey and Carmel became places I had no choice but to pass by. Even so, I could not entirely give them up, and I stopped several times to capture fragments of the scenery. Looking back thirty-five years later, what remains most vivid in my memory is not the grandeur of those coastal views, but the towns I never reached—and the peculiar taste of that coffee I tried, unsuccessfully, to cool with an RC Cola.
15. Big Sur to Santa Maria: The Final Stretch of Day One (1991)
Route 84 had been a time machine into the past. It led me to a post office that had stood since 1889, carried me through the era of stagecoaches, and ultimately delivered me to the Pacific. Along Route 1, one breathtaking vista followed another, and I drove on with nothing but the sound of the wind in my ears. Somewhere along the way, I booked a hotel room and learned that a journey is not made of freedom alone. The disappointment of passing by Monterey, and even the strange taste of coffee I unsuccessfully tried to cool with an RC Cola, have since become cherished memories. Then, that night, while watching a red car disappear along the final stretch of Big Sur, I finally understood something: travel is not about collecting spectacular views, but about allowing the wind, the scents, and the vibrations of the road to settle quietly within us, layer by layer.
Route Data
- Date: May 1991
- Distance Traveled: Approximately 440 miles (710 km)
- Driving Time: Approximately 14–15 hours
- Starting Point: Sacramento, California
- Destination: Santa Maria, California
- Route:
Sacramento →
Interstate 5 (I-5) →
Interstate 80 (I-80) →
Interstate 880 (I-880) →
San Mateo–Hayward Bridge →
U.S. Route 101 →
California State Routee 84 →
California State Route 1 →
Santa Maria - Major Stops:
Woodside
La Honda
San Gregorio
San Gregorio State Beach
Santa Cruz
Big Sur - Overnight Stay: Santa Maria, California
- Hotel: Airport Hilton (1991 property name)
▶ 1991 American West Road Trip Day1｜The Day the Journey Began
About the Kindle Edition
This road trip will eventually be revisited and reassembled as a Kindle edition.
In addition to the stories presented here, the Kindle version is planned to feature unpublished photographs, forgotten moments, and behind-the-scenes memories that never found their way into the original articles.
Stay tuned for the Kindle edition.