Wednesday, March 30. Bill arrived at the San Diego airport around noon. I previously set up 2 bikes at Liberty Station. Our first stop was Stone Brewery but to our dismay, we discovered they didn’t have Ruination. We learned that Stone is phasing out Ruination. Time to move on so we biked to our usual lunch spot of Point Loma Seafood and split a fish taco order. Always good.
Thursday, March 31. We biked around Solana Beach and then stopped at the Brigantine to split a Fish Taco order. You should be seeing a pattern here.
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| Brigantine's view never gets old. |
That afternoon we went to Swamis Gardens.
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| At the Van Gogh exhibit. |
That evening the surf was terrible so we skipped getting wet and went directly to Pizza Port to join the Thursday Night Surf Crowd.
Friday, April 1. The CA Coastal Trip begins. The first stop was to get pictures at the Hobie Statue in Dana Point. It was in 1988 that Bill and I first saw a Hobie 14 on a trailer, and that got me thinking… And that’s a path still being followed by Bill. We found the Hobie Statue and our immediate impulse was to climb up on it, and then noticed the sign saying ‘Do Not Climb on Statue’. Guess we weren’t the first with that impulse. Lunch was splitting a burrito from Nick’s in Seal Beach. Always great and too much. The burrito was enjoyed while at the Seal Beach Pier and we saw many container ships parked, awaiting instructions to enter LA Port. And we were amazed when driving through the Los Angles Port area – look at all the shipping containers stacked up, ready to be hauled away by truck or put on a ship. Containers as far as you can see. Why weren’t the cranes moving??? We only saw 1 crane in action. We toured the USS Iowa Battleship in Long Beach in the afternoon. Dinner was splitting a corned beef sandwich at O’Malley’s in Seal Beach. We walked the town after dinner and came upon what appeared to be a video shoot in progress. We asked a couple next to us, “what’s going on?” and they said not a problem, you can walk on. So we did and discovered a production crew about 50 feet ahead. They also said ‘not a problem’. Then we realized the couple were the film stars and we ruined the shot. I asked, and the production crew said the couple’s woman was Jodie Sweetin. That evening we had a Sunset Beach hotel, the Sunset Beach Surf City Inn, but not the same hotel we previously stayed at. No elevator. The room was OK but the shower fell apart. Maybe 5 minutes of hot spigot only to get hot water in the sink. We did find our last hotel – Holiday Inn.
Saturday, April 2. The first stop was Wayfarers Chapel in Palo Verdes. Our plan was a Saturday visit and not Sunday due to church services. We didn’t plan for weddings though. So we had a 20-minute wait before seeing the quaint church. Beautiful.
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| Wayfayers Chapel |
The next stop was to be my old stomping grounds in Redondo Beach but we decided to skip it and go directly to Petersen’s Automotive Museum. We had been to the museum before so some things didn’t change but they had a special exhibition on Bond Cars. The Aston Martin DB4 is quite possibly the most beautiful car ever.
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| Bill and Sean Connery with the DB4. You figure out which is which. |
There was a $260K 1,100HP luxury SUV off-road vehicle parked outside. That’s a niche market. Then time to drive to our Santa Monica hotel and came upon an accident that must have just occurred. It appeared no one was hurt but parents were taking small children out of the car to the side of the highway. Scary. That evening we had a Santa Monica hotel, the Hotel Carmel, near the third street promenade, so we did some shopping after checking in. Then we followed up by walking the iconic Santa Monica pier and discovered the best martini at The Lobster, with a sunset view over the ocean. The hotel had a valet service that was taking cars to a 24-hour parking garage so we decided to park ourselves. Not a problem until the next day when I dropped the parking ticket ($14) that went under the Element, Bill got out of the car and grabbed the ticket (or so he thought), I then inserted it and got a $50 charge. Yep, that’s how we roll.
Sunday, April 3. Jasmine met us for brunch at Shoop’s Deli. Always good to see Jasmine. Jasmine and Bill seem to think they haven’t seen each other since Tamarindo which would have been pre-2010. We then traveled the coastline to Santa Barbara. Great view of the ocean for most of the drive. We arrived too early to check-in so we walked over to the Brass Bear for a libation. I had been to Santa Barbara on a day trip some 5 years earlier to pick up surfboards. I walked about the town and saw a perfect-location hotel and thought that’s a great place for a stopover. So that’s the place we got, the Riviera Beach House.
Monday, April 4. We felt the need to push on, so we drove around the UC Santa Barbara campus instead of biking it. Such a beautiful campus. The next stop was Solvang. It was a bit of a tourist trap. We found Paula’s Pancake House and overindulged in Swedish pancakes. I haven’t had pancakes in years. Then we walked Solvang to find the mermaid and the windmill. Bill was disheartened to discover it was a non-functioning windmill. He will have to wait until Amsterdam to see the real thing. The next stop was Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo then onto Morro Bay.
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| Ewww! Don't touch that (in Bubblegum Alley). |
Morro Bay was a semi-working protected harbor with plenty of fishing boats outnumbering the pleasure boats. Morro Bay also has a h-u-g-e rock – you cannot understand how big, like the Eiffel Tower (Paris) until you see it.
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| Morro Bay rock, Bill, and a seal lion. |
Next, on to Pismo Beach. Pismo Beach was a typical beach town, with a pier, boardwalk, several tourist trinket shops, and surfboard shops. The cold wind was howling onshore so no one was surfing. Our hotel was the Paso Robles Inn. Being that it was a Monday, we didn’t find much in the way of winery bars open within walking distance of the hotel so went to Firestone Brewery at the edge of town. Bill discovered his new favorite beer since Stone will stop making Ruination. Dinner was back in Paso Robles, and only then did we discover open wineries within walking distance of the hotel.
Tuesday, April 5. This was a long drive broken up with a stop at San Simeon Pier. Also, we noticed some cars pulled off the road with people over at the fence looking east. Curious, we did the same. There were zebras in an open field and on the far hilltop was Hearst Castile. This wasn’t open due to a rockslide shutting down the public access road but we were treated to a distant view. That night’s hotel was the Ragged Point Inn.
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| Having a pint at Ragged Point Inn, with the rough coastline view. |
This was not affiliated with any hotel chain. It had grounds that go to, well, a ragged cliff overlooking a rough Pacific ocean. The cold windswept blustery conditions continued – but what a view.
Wednesday, April 6. Now we get to see some iconic California spots. Notable was McWay Falls @ Julia Pfeiffer state park. And throughout the day we had stunning ocean views. We crossed Bixby Bridge Point. That evening we stayed at Carmel Inn and Suites in Carmel-By-The-Sea.
Thursday, April 7. We drove the 17-mile drive through Monterey, stopping at most of the ocean view stops. Notable was that we saw The Lone Cypress.
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| The Lone Cypress. |
We decided to skip Santa Cruz so we could get more time at Stanford. We arrived at Stanford visitor center at about noon. We unloaded the bike and then spent the next 4-5 hours slowly biking around and admiring the grounds and building. So there is the Hewlett building; that must be the Packard building next to it. Oh look, that’s the Jerry Yang (co-founder of Yahoo) building, etc. We also noted the absence of e-bikes, graffiti, and dogs. We stopped for refreshments in a shaded seating area and I noticed several events; an interview, a group discussing a startup, and another group reviewing a group project. Seems everyone was business-focused. Our hotel was the Comfort Inn. We decided to go out for noodles for dinner so I punched it into google maps and off we went. Now I am a believer in google maps. Sometimes it sends me on a different path but with good reason. This time we found ourselves going down back alleys, and into no-exit streets. Only after finding ourselves going across a school playground did Bill ask, ‘is Google Maps assuming we are on bikes?’. Well, that wasn’t right.
Friday, April 8. We targeted staying in Millbrae, to be near a BART station and near the SFO airport. We arrived at the Dylan Hotel before check-in time. No problem for us to leave the car there. I didn’t want to take to the car into SF not only for the parking issue/costs but seems ‘petty’ crimes such as cars getting busted windows were common. So we walked to the BART station and took off to explore San Francisco.
Our common BART station was the Embarcadero stop. From there we walked to Chinatown and then onto Coit Tower. We lucked out with a clear day so we had impressive views of SF, the bay, and Oakland.
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| A clear day view from Coit Tower. |
Lunch was at The Stinking Rose followed by a walk through North Beach. Of course, we walked through City Lights Bookstore and then had a drink at Vesuvio's. I had to have an Irish Coffee and it was maybe the best I have ever had.
We walked more of SF, seeing but not going up/down Lombard Street. I managed to find a place on the Embarcadero for a martini. Another subpar one though. We took BART back to Millbrae and found a local noodle house, Easterly, for dinner. It was comical – only 1 person was working the front, seating people, clearing tables, and clearing the bills. She did plenty of running.
Saturday, April 9. We were to meet up with Mackenzie Conkling at UC Berkeley for dinner, so Bill and I took off early to see the campus. This campus has much more hills than Stanford. We found the Sather Gate, met Mackenzie at the Sather Tower and went up for the view. It was another clear day so we could see San Francisco and the golden gate bridge.
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| The view from UC Berkeley |
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| Lunch with Mackenzie |
We also got a tour of Mackenzie’s lab.
As we were walking to dinner, we came upon a closed-off street area with the local symphony playing pops music. We listened for several pieces then went to Jupiter Pizza for dinner. It was good to have conversations with Mackenzie.
Sunday, April 10. Due to poor planning on our part, we could not get into Muir forest (booked!). So we took the car to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge (south side) and walked it. Great views and strong winds.
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| View from SF to Marin County |
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| View from Marin County to SF |
We got in the car then crossed the GG Bridge and had brunch in Sausalito. Then we drove up to the Marin Headlands for great windswept views of SF, the Bay, Oakland, and a 5 sailboat race that left the harbor and went out into the Pacific Ocean. As we walked or drove to various viewpoints we checked up on the race. Our final race view was 3 boats sailing back into the harbor and 2 crippled boats being towed home.
We decided to try a different route back to SF. This time, we would go along the western edge of the peninsula. We stopped at several lookout points in Golden Gate National Recreation Park. From within the car, I looked at a number of the residential high-rise building and wondered why didn’t they have balconies? Then I got out of the car into 35+ gusting winds and realized why. That wind was brutal. We looked for but did not find a place for a drink with an ocean view so we continued back to Millbrae. Dinner was again at Easterly, and the woman was still the only person working the front and was doing plenty of running.
Monday, April 11. Departure day. I planned to drive back to Solana Beach and Bill had an SFO flight. For me, the challenge was to get past San Jose before the morning rush. So I was out of the hotel at 3 am. Interstate 5 is a l-o-n-g and boring drive. I did manage to get to a Costco provisioning stop near Solana Beach, get home, take a hot shower, have a nightcap then crash for the night. Bill killed time at the hotel and made a mid-morning flight to get back home.
Here are more California Road Trip pics.
