This past Saturday I met up with a fellow Opponaught and went on a driving adventure from Malibu to SLO. The main goal of this trip was to just drive, drive, and drive some more. Our routes to hit would include Mulholland, PCH, 150, 33, and 58. This is quite the roundabout way of getting up to the Central California coast but was well worth the time. Our vehicles of choice were my 2006 Subaru STi and a rental Ford Mustang GT Convertible.
We set out on the road bright and early by about 7am, drove some great roads, had an awesome bbq lunch in SLO, and then did a nice hike up to Valencia peak to top off the day. Considering my car averaged 21mpg and his mustered about 16, we definitely burned a crap ton of gasoline on this adventure.
So I will now tell you the story of this trip in a few words. We started out in Woodland Hills at my apartment and headed straight for the Snake on Mulholland. After a brief stop to enjoy the scenery, we were off on the road to the coast and then up to the desert.
We quickly made our way down to the PCH and began our journey Northward. We were enveloped in a dense coastal fog, plumetting the temperature to around 60F. Both of us were left wanting for some warm sunshine but little did we know, we sure would regret that desire haha. After making our way North until we hit the 101, we then hopped on CA 150 for a journey to Ojai and the 33. This route is usually plagued with slow traffic later on but thanks to our early start, we only were stuck behind a few bicycles and were quickly on our way. We eventually reached the amazing CA 33 and had a grand time hauling up that road. Temperatures at this point had gone above 80 and were still climbing. Still no AC needed yet though thanks to the dry heat and low sun angle.
Eventually we dropped some in elevation, the trees went away, and were replaced with desert plantlife and sandy hillsides. Things straightened out a bit and we headed North toward the intersection with CA 58. The roads became VERY fast at this point. Going 60 felt like you were standing still thanks to the flat landscape, limited number of intersections and the general feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. Once we made it onto the 58 finally, we were greeted with PERFECT pavement and one of the best twisty roads I have ever been on. I was very very happy to have 200TW summers at that point! At that point I was also very glad to have my ceramic tints and ice cold AC because the temperature had exceeded 100F.
Funny thing was that the Mustang actually overheated just before this point on the twisty mountain pass heading to this part of the trip. He was driving the car pretty hard, using the paddle shifters to keep it in 2nd/3rd and battling the no season tires to keep up with me via the use of his power advantage. But with the heat and having the AC on full blast, his temp gauge pegged and power cut back. But after a quick rest everything was fine and we were back on the road. Weird to me that an NA car with like no miles on it would overheat like that. Eventually after another high speed cruise down the rest of CA-58 we ended up at the 101 and arrived in SLO for some much needed food. After lunch, we made our way to the coast and finally witnessed a temperature drop. We saw nearly 30 degrees go down by the time we reached the coast and went for a hike in the lovely 68 degree weather. It was an epic way to end the day and gave us well deserved amazing views of the coastline.
What a great day! Looking forward to the next adventure for sure...
And if you are curious what the journey looks like take a watch of my dash cam video. It is the WHOLE trip so it’s long. It is sped up to 16x speed at least but its still over 18 minutes long. Enjoy!