Day Thirteen, miles and miles

Leaving Arroyo Grande this morning, we headed off to the Santa Barbara mission 100 miles south.  We are in beautiful wine country again, mountain vineyards everywhere.  The mission was amazing, Santa Barbara is s major holiday area, and the mission is immaculately kept.

We hit the In-N-Out Burger in Santa Barbara (we're hooked, Harrison), and headed south to destination L.A.  Well, Pasadena.  L.A. is too expensive.  

A Day on the Road

A day on the road looks something like this:

I wake up, like clockwork, between 6 and 6:30 every morning feeling well rested.  I do not know why.  I do some writing and checking of emails.  I search out a hot spot to get coffee.  My family wakes up and gets moving usually between about 7:30 and 8 am, showering, packing of bags, pillow fighting, playing sardines, breakfast (we always look for the breakfast included places), and then we move out in one semi-fluid motion to address the day.

We get in the car, find awesome coffee, see spectacular things, visit spectacular places.  We usually stop three or four times to see or do. We pray for our intentions for the day.   We either have lunch in the car or stop somewhere with a picnic table or grass and eat out of doors.  So far on this trip, we have had about two hours of cloudy weather.  That was this morning.

Every three or four days, I make my family eat up all the weird leftovers for dinner, which can include canned mandarin oranges, yogurt, sliced meat, tortillas, grapes, carrots and celery, corn chips, avocado mashed with aiola mayonnaise, sour cream and onion chips, Life cereal and leftover Chinese food heated up on a paper plate.  It's fun!

We roll into our next hotel usually between about 4 and 7 pm,  then we have a long swim.  Ever few days, Albert and I go for a grocery date, where we pick up supplies for the bellies.  Then we watch Chopped or Thor or Castle or Jeopardy for an hour or so and then go to bed.    Albert and I plot out the next day or two's events, have a beer or a glass of wine, write blogs, check emails, distances, book our next night's hotel, read about the towns we'll pass through and the local history here.

We all pass out and sleep like rocks.

Day Twelve, Big Sur

We lounged around Carmel this morning, 'cause it was so darn pretty.  The coastal hightway between Carmel and San Luis Obispo area is considered to be the most fabulous section of the coastal highway.  We were not to be disappointed with Big Sur and the surrounding area.  We stopped a ridiculous number of times on the highway, the views were thrillling.

I'll spare you all the two or three hundred photos I took of pristine, wild, rugged, stunning coastland of bays and headlands and twisted highway, and just share three here.

We stopped along the highway to see the McWay waterfall, fed from and underground spring, so it runs the same all year round.  It falls eighty feet to turquois water.  There is dozens of eucalyptus trees and the warm air was full of the scent of it.  Intoxicating. 

There is a stretch of elephant seals along the coast, lying around, dusting themselves with moist sand to keep cool, and making noisy claims over their particular strip of sand.

We stopped in Morro Bay, yet another little seaside town for ice cream.  There was an interesting volcanic peak in the bay, sticking our from the water, and just a short distance away an impressive nuclear power plant.

Day Eleven, A Small Geographical Area

We did some way fun stuff today.  We went to Vision Quest/Monterey Zoo, a training area for wild animals where you get to see them up close and personal.  Abel felt quite at home.

In N Out Burgers, recommended by our dear friend Deacon Harrison was a fabulous lunch spot.  Squeaky clean burger guys delivering up old fashioned, fast real food.  Three main items on the menu, hamburger, cheeseburger, double cheesburger, along with real potatoes (I saw them being peeled) fried up in baskets in a red and white kitchen.  Cute and yummy.

After an exciting afternoon of seeing real animals and eating some too, we headed down the 17 mile highway that takes you past Pebble Beach and it's famous golf course.  The drive around this peninsula is spectacular.

We wandered about the golf course at Albert's behest.  It was fabulously beautiful, and, more importantly, famous.  Pictured below is Albert in front of the 18th hole.  

After this lovely loop of many vista points, we came out at Carmel, and went to the Mission there, San Carlos Borromeo, where Bl. Junipero Serra is buried.  We attended a 5:30 pm Mass and took in the meticulously cared for mission.  Tonight we are staying in Carmel, and will head through Big Sur and the Mission of San Luis Obispo.  

Day Ten, Somewhere Near Salinas

Well it's time to move on from the architecturally stunning den of iniquity.  Isaac and Albert liked Pier 39, I liked the architecture.  Lydia's favourite part of San Francisco was our hotel room.  We stopped at a couple of different state parks on our way down to Somewhere Near Salinas, beautiful rugged coastline.

Lunched at the Pescadaro State Park where there were some ubercool sand formations, cliffs and wildflowers, mostly hardy looking varieties clinging desperately to the cliffsides.       

                                                                                                                                         

We stopped at Santa Cruz, aka Surf City where there is a boardwalk and a very windy beach, reminiscent of a beachside town with a boardwalk and surfers and sand.  There was a very fun market on the edge of a farming area with fresh fruit, avacadoes for 2$ a bagful.  Some photo ops, too.

                                                                                                                                              

We blew through Castroville, artichoke capital of the world, unfortunately missed the artichoke-fest.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I guess we're just not lucky.  We stay somewhere near Salinas tonight and tomorrow, we'll slip away somewhere near San Luis Obispo.  That just never gets old for me.  

Day Nine: Much San Francisco

We went to Mass today at the Mission Dolores, at the Church of St. Francis.  It was a beautiful church, and the original mission church beside it was lovely, too.  Apparently it's the oldest building in San Francisco.

We took Dad for fancy coffee and treats at Four Barrels coffee, just near the church in the mission district.

  Not only did we drive down Lombard Street, but we took in a walking tour of Chinatown, with a great guide who share so much historical information about the Chinese immigration to the San Francisco area, and the political scene of the Chinese, immigrants and politics of their mother country.  A really interesting guy.  While in Chinatown, we found out the fortune cookies were actually invented by a Japanese family, right here in San Francisco.  Not that long ago, like in 1962 or something, and we got to tour the teeny factory where they make the cookies. Grandma was folding cookies like nobody's business and putting them into her fortune baker. 

There was a street *here we say SHTREET festival in North Beach, San Francisco's "little Italy," and lunched in a cafe overlooking all the shenanigans and various performing artists, some hired, some volunteers from the relatively wild crowd.

An evening tour took us around downtown and across the spectacular Oakland Bay bridge, a double decker bridge.

I get pretty wiggy about the spectacular architecture here, a few shots...

Day Eight, dis iss SAFRASISCO

We headed into downtown San Francisco this morning and made a day of it here; including but not limited to, Golden Gate Bridge, Haight Ashbury, Fisherman's Wharf, the Saturday market at the Ferry Building where we ate gourmet hot dogs, oxymoronic as that may sound and took in a few buskers.

There are five Landry's in this photo.  Can you spot all of them?

Here's an interesting snippet from a bus tour guide pointing out some people tenting in the park.

  

"They juss let you do anytheen you wahn hee.  Are you kideen? You coot stan nakit on nat shtreet corna.  Dis iss Safrasisco."

Apparently, tour buses carry signs with simplistic grammar to aid the foreign tourists in the acquisition of the English language.  Well, I think we can assume this approach is ineffective, since we've tried it for three or four decades of schoolchildren with less than desirable results.  Let's move on.

We'll stay in San Francisco tonight.

Our room is on the 22nd floor, spectacular views.  Here's the skyline from the pool deck a few floors down.