Road Trip 2012, Day 7: Big Sur, Monterey & San Fran

One thing we had discovered on the way to our campground at Arroyo Seco was that we were going to completely miss “Big Sur,” which is supposed to be the consummate Pacific coast drive. We decided we couldn’t be out here and miss that. So, being us, we decided to drive west. No, we didn’t have any clear idea of what road to take or anything, we just knew we needed to be on the other side of the mountain. We took something that seemed to be heading the right direction and happened upon an Army training camp, Fort Liggett. Fortunately, the guy at the gate told us to keep going across the little bridge and on through the mountains. Unfortunately, the MP’s didn’t like our 20 MPH over the 10 MPH bridge and we got pulled over in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, their radio service was crap and they couldn’t check out our registration and they just gave up, giving us a verbal warning.

The drive was pretty unbelievable: huge drops, scenic vistas and crazy curves. Eventually we made it to the Pacific Ocean.

The drive from there to Monterey was pretty awesome, but I’d be lying if I said it was the most incredible thing I’d seen. Now maybe the hype kind of made it not too jaw-dropping, but I kind of saw it as “west Texas rolling mountains meet the Pacific.” If you’ve never seen west Texas mountains, then maybe it would be more of an OMG kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, it was worth seeing, it’s just that other things in my life have wowed me more. Neither Brad nor I regret the several crazy hours it took to get us there, but I’m not booking our next vacation along that section of coast.

We finally made it to Monterey. The town was cute, but the breeze was terribly chilly. Even Brad bought a jacket. We decided to forgo the Monterey Aquarium. At first I had been really, really excited about going there, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered all the other aquariums I’ve been to and the diving and snorkeling, too.  Besides, we totally did NOT have the time to spend there…

…We needed to get to our GoCar tour!!!

Thanks to one of those group deal coupon websites, we got a twilight tour of San Francisco for like $30 per car. The cute little car has GPS built in so as long as you’re following its directions it will tell you all about the area, like how Telegraph Hill has a population of wild conures and how the merchants at Point Park would watch to see what types of cargo were coming in. They were a blast to drive and we got lots of laughs and stares, especially as we drove down the curviest street, Lombard.

After our tour we raced back to our hotel to meet my brother, Brandon and his significant other (fiance? girlfriend? Need clarification!), Ayuri. Brandon and I had never met before; he’s one of my two half-brothers who both grew up in California.

We met excitedly and trotted off to find some good grub, ending up at a pizza place called “Patxi’s Chicago Pizza.” We ate way too much, talked tons and really enjoyed each other’s company. The girls were surprisingly well behaved and I think we had a great night. I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with Brandon & Ayuri.

Our hotel, the Capri Motel, was a great deal – perfect location near the marina district, free parking and free wifi. The only issue was that it only had mini-blinds and no curtains. Since it was east-facing this was kind of a huge deal because at sunrise we were utterly blinded. Well, at least that got us up and moving pretty early so we could enjoy some more of San Fran before we had to drive out to see the redwoods.

Road Trip 2012, Day 6: From LA to Arroyo Seco

This day started in a very untraditional vacation manner – with haircuts. I finally convinced Caroline that getting a haircut in Hollywood would be the ultimate of coolness so we walked up the street from our hotel to the Supercuts, which opened at 8am. We literally sat on the curb waiting for the doors to be unlocked so we wouldn’t have to wait – we wanted to get on the road!

Note that I’m sportin’ my new GAP jacket (and like 2 layers under it). Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with my family that they all wear little, teensy clothes when it’s frigid and only in the 60’s!

We once again packed up the Sequoia and hit the road. This time – and this is the only time it’s happened – we didn’t have quite the sense of how to get where we were going. The key is that we wanted to get to the Pacific Coast Highway but our GPS was all set on taking us on major interstates more inland. We finally pulled over and a nice police officer helped us get going to the right way.

At a suggestion from Paula & Bob, we drove up the coast to Piedras Blancas beach where there is a population of elephant seals that hang out in the sunshine. It was a great suggestion. We’ve now swum with harbor seals and mooed with elephant seals!

This is a crazy lone male who kept popping his head up and bellowing for 20 seconds or so.

After the beach we headed a good bit inland toward our campground, Arroyo Seco. I have no official idea what that means, but I think it’s something like “deep in the mountain, far from anything and cold.” It’s very difficult to reserve camping spots in California in the summer and this campground was between LA and SF so I figured it would work out. It could have been better, could have been worse. The drive there was a LOT like driving through west Texas: rolling hills of brown grasses dotted with trees. However, we did hit some farming areas and they looked kinda cool.

The night was freezing. Like totally, massively freezing. I think it hit around 42 degrees. Eeek.

Road Trip 2012, Day 5: Hollywood and around

We started off this beautiful day in LA with a trip right down the road, to the La Brea Tar Pits. Now this is my idea of fun! I love the smell of asphalt in the morning…

Seriously, the Pits were well worth checking out. They have made a beautiful garden around the whole area so you have no idea you’re about to step right into goo as you round the corner by the hydrangea or roll/get shoved down the grassy hill – you never feel it coming! The gardens are really nice and the life-sized elephant family on the shoreline of the stinky, black – and fenced – pit of tar is very explanatory.

 

The Page Museum is also right there. We didn’t go in the actual museum but did hit the store for several minutes and left more than several dollars poorer.

From there we headed up the hills to Burbank to the Warner Brothers Studio VIP tour. I took lots of pictures of houses and sets; I’ll probably never remember the importance of most – except I do remember the house from Gremlins, the steps where Ross played his keyboard waiting for Rachel at prom and the tree from The Last Samurai.

We were shown the full sets for Pretty Little Liars and The Big Bang Theory, which is filmed with a real audience. They also have the original Friends set exactly as it was the last day of filming. It was way cool to see how the filming is actually done. I’m not totally sure the kids got it, but maybe someday I can remind them. Warner Brothers is a good tour that I would definitely recommend for anyone traveling through LA.

An added bonus to the tour is that the studio is in Burbank, near the Griffith Park Observatory. We drove on up there and enjoyed views of the Hollywood sign and the whole valley. They have a cafeteria-style restaurant with yummy foods by Wolfgang Puck and an astronomy museum..

After getting all the good photos of the city and The Sign, we headed down to Hollywood to see some stars.

All the stars we saw were built into the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard, unfortunately, but it was pretty cool that they made one for us.

We also stopped in at an Army Surplus store and bought me wool socks and a huge wool blanket. I just know I’m going to die camping in the mountains and the canyons.And we got Grace some Converse sneakers just because they were a good deal.

After checking out the utter craziness in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater (the Tom Cruise lookalike was H.O.T.) we headed to The Grove, LA’s cool outdoor mall that’s supposed to the the hangout of the Hollywood Starlings. We got me a jacket at the GAP because I’m always cold and we walked around but we never did see anyone who was anyone except Shrek.

Back to the Beverly Laurel Motor Inn, which was a fun place to stay and in a really GREAT location to rest up for the next day’s trip. Right down the street we had a brand spanking new laundromat where we washed all the icky, dirty clothes. It had big screen TV’s and free wifi!

Road Trip 2012, Day 4 (part 1) –La Jolla

After a good night’s sleep and a great La Quinta breakfast we packed up the truck again and headed off to La Jolla to go snorkeling. La Jolla is a really cute seaside town with tee shirt vendors (note to self, I cannot wear a child’s medium (I hope it was a child’s)) and people crashed out on picnic blankets all over the place. We lucked out and got a decent parking place (Brad spot) and headed along the cliff-top sidewalk looking for a good place to “put in.” We found a beach called “Children's Beach.” Seriously, what could be better? Those waves crashing against the rocks definitely didn’t look like a lot of fun, but Children’s Beach was in a bit of a cove and had a nice, sandy beach. Oh yeah, and it also had a crap-load of SEALS. Yee ha! (OK, so they weren’t Navy SEALS, which would have been kind of awesome, but harbor seals, which were still really cool)

Being the really smart person that I think I am, I opted not to even poke my toes into the unbelievably frigid-OMG-my-toes-are-going-to-fall-off water but chose to sit snuggly warm in the sand near the water. The kids and the man donned their snorkel apparatus and flopped off to the water’s edge. (do realize, of course, that if this water was not already indicated to be SIXTY-FOUR degrees on the sign at the top of the stairs I might have made the plunge, too. But having experienced water below 75 degrees I have no intentional plans to ever do that again in the future)

The seals (beast, not man), were really interested in the kiddos and the Brad-man, which was totally cool. They got some garbled, seasickness provoking underwater video with seals in it, and they also got to see kelp and some fish. At least Caroline and Brad did; Grace escaped pretty quickly and hiked up to a rock ledge to check out all the critters basking in the warmth of the sun. Girl’s smarter than I thought. The other two nitwits kept swimming along until Caroline was blue and shaking kind of like a margarita in our awesome (thanks Pat!) Margaritaville machine.

The water and the whole area was really beautiful to look at, but we were meeting Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob in Malibu (all I could think of was Malibu Barbie the whole way there) so we headed out up the coast.

Road Trip 2012, Day 4 (part 2) – Malibu & Santa Monica

We met Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob at Paradise Cove Café in Malibu. Many years ago Brad’s mom & dad had also eaten there with the Castruitas. We had a yummy meal and caught up on each other’s lives.

The beach there is pretty wide and well populated with families out for a fun time. We kicked off our shoes and wandered down to the water’s edge. The girls, loonies that they are, go into the frigid water a little bit and Grace wandered off exploring under the pier (which was the scene of a Hummer commercial where the Hummer drives off the end of the pier at full speed).

It was great to see Paula and Bob; the last time we saw them was at Megan & Eric’s wedding several years ago. Our visit had to be fairly speedy though, because they were leaving the next morning for a family vacation in Yosemite National Park. We said our goodbyes and turned the truck north towards Santa Monica Pier.

I was really concerned that the kids would want to play there all night, but we managed to make it a really speedy trip. The pier is neat, but it has nothing on the Ocean City, NJ, boardwalk. It looked similar except the boards were more in disrepair and it’s maybe half a mile long compared to the many miles long boardwalk. Grace bought a sweatshirt and we got photos of the sunset and we left Santa Monica for the Beverly Laurel Motor Inn in west Hollywood.

It was a cute hotel, kind of kitschy with a Hollywood theme for the rooms. It has low cost parking (I had though it was free – I’ll have to look that up) and a pool. Best aspect though is its location. Oh, and that there’s a great restaurant called Swingers right downstairs.

Road Trip 2012, Day 2: From Bluewater Lake to San Diego–with a lot of stuff in between!

Our day started out quite early, seeing as we froze our butts off at night, tossed and turned and then heard those early birds loud and clear in the morning. We packed up the truck (thank you, Eagle Scout Brad) and headed on out.

First stop, Continental Divide, where Grace picked up a splinter that haunted her for a few days.

And then we cross into Arizona – good bye, New Mexico!

Next stop, Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park (ah, thank you, America the Beautiful park pass).

The girls scavenged for petrified wood, but were very good and didn’t keep a single bit!

Next stop, Winslow, Arizona. We couldn’t drive Route 66 without stopping here. Duh. This place is interesting: that wall back there? It’s just a wall. I mean like there’s no building behind that wall.At the curbside is a red, flatbed Ford. Other than a 5 & Dime kind of place on the other corner, there doesn’t seem to be too much in Winslow. It does look like they’re making it a little snazzier with cute lampposts and stuff, though.

Yet another stop: Meteor Crater. This was really pretty awesome. The crater itself is large enough to hold 20 concurrent football games along with 2,000,000 cheering spectators. The remaining chunk of meteor, on the other hand, is kinda little. Show you how fast that sucker was going when it hit and broke up (50,000 mph!).

The wind up there was totally cranking. Honestly, I’m surprised they don’t appear to have any incidences of people blowing off the edge. Seriously – it’s nuts.

OK, now it’s on through a WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING until we finally got to Flagstaff, Arizona. There was something I liked about that city, although we really only stopped at Wendy’s. The Wendy’s guy, Kyle, was really nice and funny and he suggested we should go ahead and drive through Sedona, even though it would be a little out of the way. GREAT decision. The drive there from Flagstaff was gorgeous. It reminded both Brad and me of the drive up River Road from I-95 heading to New Hope. There were twists and turns, green trees, green plants, steep drops, trees overhanging the road, houses for sale by Sotheby’, of course, the scenery here was a smidge more dramatic than the Delaware Valley. You would drive around a curve and come face to face with massive red hills instead of meandering, shallow river water.

The town of Sedona even reminded me of home, except it’s about twice the size of New Hope. There are lots of cool stores selling jewelry and art, trinkets and antiques.

Then on we drove, through more nothing Arizona (why everyone doesn’t live in Flagstaff, I don’t know) where we baked when we had to stop for food (109 degrees. Oh yeah, dry heat – really, it felt fine. NOT) and finally entered California and got to San Diego exhausted and punchy.

Road Trip 2012, Day 3: San Diego Zoo

This is where some strange alignment was going on in the universe. Some background: last summer, our great neighbors, the Petersens, moved and left our little happy Katy neighborhood for the great wilderness of Alaska. The girls were particularly upset because Megan, their younger daughter, was a good buddy to both of them. We hoped to be able to travel to Alaska to see them but my research indicated we would either spend an eternity or a couple arms and legs to get there. A couple weeks ago Wendy Petersen texted me saying that Megan and her older sister, Emilie, were in Austin so maybe we could get the girls together out there. I was really bummed to reply that our girls were in Oklahoma and they would be so sorry they missed the opportunity to see their friends.

So, that brings us to Friday in San Diego. On Thursday night Wendy texted me that the girls, their Aunt Michelle and Uncle Dave and cousins Audrey, Alec and Amanda were going to be in San Diego for a football tournament that Alec was in. She gave me Michelle’s phone number and I texted that we would be there and we were planning to hit the San Diego Zoo the next day. Michelle replied that they were planning to go the next day, as well, since that day they just happened to have a bye during the tournament. So far that’s three big coincidences to this point.

We wandered the reptile house and took photos of cool reptiles for Kris Swanson, then met up with the Dickersons, Megan and Emilie.

The San Diego Zoo really is a bucket list kind of item. It’s like Disney for animal people. It even has some amusement rides, a Skifari and evening entertainment. If you’re anywhere nearby you really shouldn’t miss it.

I do have to say though that after experiencing so many of these animals in the wild in Kenya it was kind of depressing to see them in enclosures, no matter how awesome they look. When we saw elephants they were on the move. They might stop at a bush to grab some leaves but they would move on, as a large group, in just a few minutes. These guys looked lonely and bored. The lions were less troubling since they are such loners in general anyway.

We really did have a fabulous time at the zoo, made all that much better with the terrific company of old friends.

And of course, the day wouldn’t have been complete without the requisite knee-licking by Uncle Dave.