Photo Essay: Driving the Pacific Coast's Highway 1 by Chris Nicholson
Introduction
The whole thing should be named The Pacific Coast Highway, but it’s
not.
Instead, the long road that winds along the U.S. west coast goes
by several names in several locations: The Cabrillo Highway. The
Shoreline Highway. The Coast Highway. And yes, for a stretch in California,
the Pacific Coast Highway.
Governments like to number their roads, and they’ve counted
these ribbons of pavement as Routes 1 and 101, depending on the longitude
of a given mile. But in referring to the whole drive, the majority
moniker is Highway 1.
A road by any other name would still be a street, but this highway — no
matter its handle — happens to be a beautiful and spectacular
drive. I found this out personally in 2000 when, accompanied by my
good friend and fellow photographer Jean
Paul Vellotti, I drove and rode in a Mustang convertible from
Seattle to San Diego, photographing scenes along a long road neighbored
by the waters of the largest ocean on earth.
