Kevin and I were long overdue for an extended, just-the-two-of-us vacation. The last one we took was in August 2014. It was this trip to
Glacier National Park. So this year we decided to take advantage of the fortunate timing of Christmas and New Year's and take a long road trip. Since both fell on a Friday, taking four days off magically turned into ten blissful, work-free days! Our road trip of course meant driving south to California. One word: sunshine.
We started off on Christmas Day by driving south until we couldn't stand driving anymore. That turned out to be Weed, California in the Mt Shasta area. The most memorable thing about the drive down was the beautiful full moon we had in the mountain area. The sun was already long gone, but it was a completely clear night with a brilliant full moon. Everything was snow covered, and the snow reflected the moonlight so well that it was almost like daylight. Traffic was light enough that the headlights didn't ruin the scene, so we got a beautiful moonlight view of the mountains. So unique and pretty. We did run into a bit of unexpected-to-us snowfall at the highest point of the pass, which left me driving white-knuckled for awhile. Being from Wisconsin, I'm very comfortable driving in less-than-ideal conditions. But out here, it's the unknown and the elevation that's scary. You don't know how well they salt/sand the roads or if everyone is driving so slowly because they need to or because they're being overcautious. You don't know how steep the climbs or descents will be or how long it will last. I just never know if I should be freaking out or not! In the end, the car handled really well and I don't think there was much or any actual ice on the roads.
On Saturday we drove the rest of the way to our first destination: Palm Springs! Neither of us had been before, but I'd read a lot of things about it being a kind of quirky, design-centric town with lots of good restaurants and plenty of sunshine. We stayed at The Saguaro, which is famous for it's rainbow color scheme. Here's the obligatory picture of said rainbowyness:
We ate our first breakfast at Elmer's, which came up as one of the most popular diner-type places. Once we sat down, we had to laugh because it turned out to be
a Pacific Northwest chain, with most locations in Washington and Oregon. So essentially we drove over a thousand miles to eat at the exact same kind of place we could eat at in Seattle. Well, at least we know what we like. Next we took a long walk from our hotel to the downtown area and drooled over all of the gorgeous mid-century modern ranch homes. Swoooooon. We ended up at a thrift store (not an accident) and I found this fantastic vintage Dooney and Burke bag in my favorite shade of leather, plus these perfect little vintage t-straps. Hurray for thrifting in a style-minded community of old people!!!
We also went to the
Moorten Botanical Garden, which was super cool! I took lots of cactus and succulent pictures, especially the weird ones inside of the greenhouse area. My favorite plant was the haworthia attenuata and I ended up taking a little mini one home with us. Don't worry! I didn't just pluck it from the ground...I bought it in the gift shop.
After it got dark we drove to see
Robolights. How do I describe this? It's a bunch of sculptures of all sizes made from found objects and mostly painted in a single color. It has been constructed over the years by one guy. For the holidays he also adds a TON of lights and Christmas-y stuff. It's super quirky and cool that this guy just DID it. A tiny bit creepy as well? Yeah kinda. Here's Kevin looking awestruck.
That night we went out to what was our favorite dinner of the trip. We walked to a place called
Mr. Lyons and opted for the lounge side (we're lounge people). Yes, it is a steakhouse. And yes, one of my New Year's resolutions is recommitting to be a better vegetarian again. So it was an odd choice. However, like a lot of Palm Springs, it has this retro, mid-century, old-Hollywood vibe that I just love. Especially the lounge section was just so perfectly "fancy supper club" and I loved it. Plus! It turns out they also make really good vegetables. Kevin was laughing at me because I ordered so much stuff! They brought over his steak frites (which was delicious), and then they just kept bringing more and more of the side dishes I ordered for me. It was a smorgasbord of plates. I especially loved the fancy deviled eggs. OMG deviled eggs are THE BEST thing. These were duck eggs and I think the filling had some kind of goat cheese plus something horseradish-y. I also got the charred brussel sprouts, wedge salad (sans bacon), onion rings, and french onion soup (not vegetarian, I know, but still not a steak). They also made the most wonderful Vodka gimlet. My favorite drink thanks to my friend Kari, but which, for some reason, seems to mystify some bartenders. It's kind of my thing to order one and just see what happens. I've gotten them in a variety of glasses, with simple syrup, a sugared rim, and even once a maraschino cherry (ew)! This one was just perfect though with vodka, lime juice, ice, and a lime wedge (I like to order them on the rocks). Here's a bad picture of me enjoying it.
Afterwards we walked to the bar in the Ace Hotel for more booze. At that point I was over fancy-shmancy and just asked the bartender for "shitty beer in a can". Sometimes that's all you want. We also took what is probably one of the best photo-booth strips of our relationship, involving me swooping in for a kiss and Kevin looking awestruck. It's awesome.
On Monday we said goodbye to Palm Springs and took the scenic route to San Diego. The drive was super pretty, and also kind of strange, since we ran into a bit more mountainy snow. Who knew.
Strangely, we arrived in San Diego to rain for our first night. But whatever, we didn't let that stop us from heading out of course. Plus who can really be angry at California for getting some much-needed rain. We got a really delicious dinner at a Mexican place, dried off a bit, and then walked to the
Stone Brewing Tap Room. The vibe on a Monday night at the Tap Room wasn't too lively, which was a bit of a bummer. But they did have board games! We battled each other at Connect 4 and checkers and I'll admit that Kevin came out the ultimate winner.
For breakfast the next day, Kevin found this fantastic diner (we LOVE diners) in Ocean Beach called the
Old Townhouse Restaurant. It was basically perfect. After breakfast we walked the pier and beach area. There were a couple of Pelicans perched on the pier, some people fishing, and a surprising number of surfers. Well, maybe not surprising? I don't know. Surprising to me being that it was a Tuesday morning around 10am and actually a bit chilly out despite the sunshine.
After breakfast we drove to Point Loma and the
Cabrillo National Monument. We had gone there on our last visit to San Diego, but it has been overcast so we couldn't really see any of the views and didn't stay long. This time, it was completely clear and sunny. Hurray! We walked around for quite a bit and looked at a couple of the exhibits. I really liked the lighthouse exhibit, which had two of these really amazing lenses. They're so gorgeous! From the lighthouse we drove down to the tide pool area. The tide was in at the time, so we couldn't actually do any walking around the tide pools, but it was still really cool to see the rocky coastline.
Then it was tacos for lunch (so many tacos), a happy stop at a thrift store per my request, then some more outdoor wandering in
Balboa Park with coffee in hand. We visited the Palm Grove canyon and walked around the museum buildings mostly. There were a TON of people taking wedding or engagement photos, which I always get a ridiculous kick out of seeing. For dinner we decided to go up to the North Park neighborhood and picked a sushi restaurant. I think we both needed a break from heavy food! The funniest part of dinner was that Kevin ordered drinks while I was in the bathroom and told me it "was a surprise". Oh my goodness. When she started brining them I was at first confused, and then - to be honest - a bit overwhelmed! The drink special turned out to be a large bottle of Japanese beer plus a large carafe of hot sake. Each. So much booze.
The next morning we hit up another diner in North Park called
Rudford's. It was totally perfect with a retro vibe. I think we may also have started a new vacation-diner-breakfast tradition: ordering a banana split. I guess I was feeling extra-vacationy, because somehow I got it in my head that it would be THE BEST THING EVER to share a banana split after our breakfast mains. And I gotta say, it kinda was. It also resulted in my favorite picture of myself from the entire trip. Check it:
Then it was back on the road on our way to Los Angeles. We arrived just around lunch time and headed straight to
Philippe's for some original french dip sandwiches. You order at the counter right from the sandwich makers, who make it right in front of you while you wait. You can order the sandwiches “single-dip”, double-dip” or “wet” and have a choice of classic sides. So. Delicious.
Next we continued to our hotel, which was actually in Santa Monica. We stayed at the
Seaview again because we loved it some much the first time. By the time we got there the sun was setting, so we grabbed some coffee and took a little walk. Here are some more obligatory pictures of the palm trees and the rides at the Santa Monica Pier.
That night we decided to drive back into Los Angeles to go to the
Griffith Observatory . This is when - for the first time - I started to sour a bit on LA. So much driving and so many people. There were a TON of cars on the road up to the Observatory, and for a while we weren't even sure if it was going to be possible to get there and park before it closed (even though we had originally planned to get there two hours before they closed). Happily we were able to park - albeit pretty far from the actual parking lot along side the road - and then walked up to the main building. We missed the last show of the night because of the congestion, although tickets may have been sold out anyway. Instead, we just wandered around the exhibits and looked in some of the smaller telescopes they had set up around the grounds. We didn't actually get to look in the big telescope because the line was literally too long. They would have closed before we would have gotten to the front. Did I mention there were SO MANY PEOPLE?!? Regardless, we were glad to have visited and the smaller telescopes were pretty cool to look through anyway. We saw a nebulon that I have forgotten the name of, and the astrologer guy that was guarding it was really fun to listen to. Also, I got this cool picture of a sign.
The next morning we stayed around the beach in Santa Monica for a bit, renting beach cruisers and getting breakfast by the beach at a place that was just okay. Then it was back on the road to our final road trip destination: Santa Barbara.
This was another place we hadn't been before, and really we just picked it off the map as a small-ish town that was further north but still on the coast. And we ended up really liking it! We stayed at a cheap-ish motel that was actually pretty charming right on State Street, aka the main drag. Basically all the older buildings have been preserved, although many have also been converted into mainstream retail stores. We walked from our hotel down most all of State Street, stopping for ice cream and drinks. For ice cream we went to
McConnell's, just because it looked cool. But it turned out to be - honestly - the best ice cream we've ever had. So. good. You can read all about their history and special ice cream making machine on their website. I had some kind of salted caramel cookie cream and Kevin had Turkish coffee. For dinner we kept it super casual and hit up a taqueria for burritos. They had one on the menu called the California burrito (not sure if this is a thing or not) that had french fries in it. Sure! Why not!
Even though it was New Year's Eve, we went back to our hotel pretty early. Honestly, I think at this point we were a bit eating-outed out. The next day we drove as far north as we could stand and stayed again in the Mt Shasta area. This time we were heading through the mountains in the daylight, and the drive was beautiful. Driving mostly in the daylight meant lots of knitting time for me!
We made two stops on the way. One for In-And-Out Burger and one to see the Monarch butterfly grove in Pismo Beach! It was hard to get a picture of the Monarch clusters, but take my word for it that it was super cool. The small forested area by a warm inlet of the coast is one of the places where Monarchs come to spend the winter. We stopped there shortly during the warmest part of the day, so we got to see lots of them both flying around and clustering together on the pine and eucalyptus branches. It was definitely worth the stop!
Well folks, if you've made it to the end of this epically long post, congratulations! I'm done!
