HONEYMOON! (days 7 & 8)

"This is the end, Beautiful friend"- The Doors

We took a variety of albums along with us on the trip that neither of us listened to all the way through or on a regular basis. (Many thanks to the UPenn library for their extensive collection) So we had a musical reeducation during our long drives. One of the albums being "Doors" by the Doors as mentioned above. Most of the selections were from Rolling Stones top 500 albums list. We listened to a lot of Beatles and Pink Floyd. I recommend Dark Side of the Moon if you ever find yourself driving through dark Redwood forests. Some of our favorites that got played through a few times were:

Devo- Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Pixies- Doolittle (listened to that A LOT)

The Zombies- Odessey & Oracle

The Kinks- We are the Village Green Preservation Society

Anyway, onto the day...
We left our chic little hotel in Big Sur and started back down CA 1. Big Sur was very foggy that morning and we drove through it for 45 minutes or so. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

We stopped off a couple of times to take pictures of the coast bathed in pea soup.

There were also a few places in Big Sur where we could really see the damage from the wildfires. This section shown above was pretty expansive and stretched over a couple of ranges. We piled back in the car and drove out of the fog eventually. The road around this area started to twist and turn a bit more and continued to have great views. We started seeing more sprawling farmland the closer we got to San Simeon. We were expecting to pass by Hurst Castle, which we weren't too interested in, but we were not expecting this...


In the San Simeon State Park area there is a elephant seal refuge. We saw the pull off from pretty far back , and weren't sure what it was. As we got closer I asked Deanna if those were really big shiny rocks or seals. We pulled in and got really close to these giants. They didn't do a whole lot. They were not as active as the seals or sea lions we saw before. They did bellow loudly, though, which was really incredible to hear. It was a very low but loud fog horn sound. There was also some type of wild squirrel there that was very used to human interaction. They would eat food right out of peoples' hands and even crawl up into their laps. After hanging out there for a little we drove on to San Luis Obispo. Deanna had found this hotel online that caught her interest. Its called the Madonna Inn. It features over 100 rooms, each of which has its own theme. We thought we would stop off there for a quick lunch, and weren't sure what to expect really. We got there and knew right away that this was going to be an experience. It felt like you were entering some sort of theme park.
Pink. Pink everywhere... The lamp posts were pink. The flowers were pink, the buildings were pink. We walked in and poked around a bit. We took a lot of pictures. I could make three posts strictly about this place, we have that much material...
Above is one of their dinning areas. I think this is where the dinner service is. As you can see, no one ever said "I don't know, maybe it's too much?" while decorating the Madonna Inn.
This is Deanna exploring the men's bathroom. Don't worry, no one else was in there, and I was keeping watch at the front door while photographing. Its a little hard to see here, but Deanna is standing at the urinal which is actually a large motion sensor waterfall. Yes, you pee into a waterfall and there is a drain in the floor at your feet. This was one of the two men's bathrooms I explored. The other had a large watermill and trough for the urinal and water pumps for the sink faucets.
This was the women's restroom in the lobby. Deanna was infatuated with this room. The whole time we were there she kept saying everything was INTENSE! The women's bathroom had chandeliers, pink iridescent wallpaper, and lots of deep red vinyl fabric, and lots of light bulbs. I forget if it was this one or the other ladies' room (I didn't venture in those, just saw pictures) that had a large strip of carved wood that said "YOUR BEAUTY IS YOUR SMILE".
We got our lunch in the Copper Cafe which is part of the hotel. This is a panorama of the area we were eating in. We were seated on puffy red leather stools at a counter. It was quite a place. We split a sandwich and then got a huge banana split dubbed the Madonna's Delight. The service was great and the food was good. I was expecting this place to be a little more seedy or weathered by age, but it's incredibly well kept and clean. We went over to the check-in area to look at postcards. They had postcards of a good majority of the rooms, if not all of them. Seeing all of those made us wish we had scheduled a night there. Check out the hotel and rooms here:
http://www.madonnainn.com/
We got back in the car to do another two hours or so drive to Ventura where we were staying for the night. On this stretch we were away from the coast. We were driving through a lot of rolling hills. We saw our first wine vineyards here. I was a little more impressed by those than Deanna. Neither of us are big wine drinkers, but it was a sight to see. We pulled into Ventura and found our hotel which was not too far off the main road. We were pleasantly surprised with a slightly upgraded room, which is always nice.
The hotel was next to the Ventura Marina, so this was the view from our second floor balcony. We relaxed for a few minutes, then changed into bathing suits and drove to the beach that was only about a 3 minute drive from the hotel.
The beach was really pretty and it was late enough (5-6ish maybe) that there weren't too many people around. We had yet to really go into the ocean since the water had been too cold further north. I was able to talk Deanna into coming in with me. So we got to dip into the Pacific which was fun. It was a little chilly, but not bad. We went back to the hotel and freshened up before heading to downtown Ventura for some dinner. We got a slice of pizza on main street and walked around for a bit.

I was pretty happy with this shot of Ventura at dusk

Ventura's City Hall, Father Junipero Serra statue

We tried navigating our way back to the hotel, which took a little guess work. We stopped off at a Circle K (several times on the trip I got to use the "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K" quote from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and picked up some snacks to take back to the hotel. I ran to the balcony just in time for the tail end of the sunset.

And got one more panorama of the marina at night. We kicked back the rest of the night and watched some cable. Deanna got to indulge in some popcorn and John and Kate Plus Eight in a king sized bed, tough to top. We got up early the next day in hopes of making one more trip to the beach. We went, but it was too cold and not sunny, so there was no more swimming for us. We got some breakfast, then were off to LA. LA......uhhhhh(long sigh, not a good sigh either) This was my grumpy day. I did not enjoy driving this day. We went down the coast through Malibu and all of the coastal beaches you hear about in movies and tv. It was pretty in parts, but cars were beginning to stack up. We eventually got to Santa Monica and did a few circles until we figured out where we were and parked. We walked on the beach for a bit toward the pier. We went through an adult playground area with exercise stations. I tried out an enormous row of metal ring swings and determined I am not destined to be on American Gladiators. Deanna faired much better on the curvy balance beam. We walked around the rides and stopped in an arcade looking for a picture booth. For those of you who don't know, Deanna loves picture booths. They can't be the newer digital ones though, they have to be film process.

We also hit one earlier on the trip in San Francisco. She appears to be clawing my eyes out it both.

This was taken from the pier looking down at the Santa Monica beach. On our way back we saw a lot of Segways for rent. They seemed to be as popular as the bike rentals, and they had kid sized Segways which I hadn't seen before. The rest of the day was planned very vaguely. We knew we wanted to see Sunset Boulevard, and Mulholland Drive. So we drove, and drove and drove. Nothing was within walking distance, and once you got to one destination, the rest of the sites were still very spread out. We drove around LA for 4 hours, stopping shortly for lunch at Arby's. So we covered a lot of ground, but didn't feel like we saw a lot. Beverly Hills had some pretty parts. We drove through studio city by accident which was probably my highlight of the day. We pulled off at a vista view on top of a hill and saw the Hollywood sign. We saw it throughout the day and kinda thought, "well, there it is". So LA was not our favorite place on earth. I think if we had found a couple specific places we wanted to see it would have been better, but we left with the impression that it was just an odd and kind of dirty city. So we looked around for cheap gas (which ranged from $4.50 a gallon to $4.17 a gallon on the same block) and a carwash. We got to the airport and checked in. Our plane ended up being delayed by an hour because we had to de-board and get on a different plane, but aside from that everything went smooth. We both slept for the majority of the overnight trip. We had to run a bit in JFK airport due to our plane delay, but we made it and got back to Philadelphia in one piece. Once back at our apartment we collapsed for a couple of hours. The next couple of days were a little slow paced as well until we got back into the groove of things.

It was a fantastic trip! We both had a lot of fun, and gained a ton of new experiences. I liked the north much more than the south, but we really enjoyed Ventura and the Madonna Inn, too, so I wouldn't change a thing.(except maybe skipping LA) I hope we get a chance to travel a lot more in our future since Deanna makes a very good travel partner and navigator. Thanks for reading about our journey!

HONEYMOON! (days 5 & 6)

We checked out of our hotel, The Mosser, in the morning and drove to Santa Cruz. This took us between and hour-and-a-half and two hours. It was a pretty drive, but not as dramatic as the northern coast. Deanna was pretty sleepy this morning, probably due to our long day of walking in San Francisco, but she perked up pretty quickly once we reached the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

The sky trail that goes almost the entire length of the boardwalk.

A panorama of the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Click the image to see it bigger.

Ball Bath?

Nope, not a ball bath

We walked down the boardwalk for a while and checked out the attractions. We decided we should hit up our second carousel of the trip before anything else. We tracked down a ticket booth and figured out all of the attractions we wanted to ride.
Our first stop - the carousel. An older gentleman riding the horse next to me was kind enough to offer to take a picture of us enjoying the ride. The carousel itself of really beautiful and well kept. It was a lot older than the one we rode in San Francisco, and all of the horses went up and down, instead of just a select few. We even needed to wear seat belt on this one as you can see above. The best feature about it was an arm that stretched out from the wall and came close to the riders on the outside horses. The arm dispensed small metal rings that the riders could grab and try to throw in the mouth of a clown painted on the back wall (see below).
This was quite a task since the clown was a good ten yards from the horses. When people did get their ring in all sorts of bells and whistles and lights would go off. We weren't on the outside of the carousel, so we didn't have much of a chance, but there were plenty of rings on the ground after the ride was over that we tried our best with.
Our next ride was the Giant Dipper, a wooden roller coaster from 1924. It was featured in the 80's movie Lost Boys, which was as exciting for us as the ride itself. (read: VERY exciting, just in case you're not a Lost Boys fan) It was a very jostling and rough ride, but a lot of fun. Deanna isn't a fan of heights, so she was a little excitable as our car climbed up the first hill. After the coaster we walked down the rest of the stretch and got some food. We then went out onto the beach. It was still pretty mild that day, but that didn't stop some of the beach-goers from playing in the cold water.Deanna really liked the lifeguard stands. She thought they looked like lunar landers or something. We went back and rode the sky track after walking on the sand for a bit. The kid working the sky track said we could hold onto our tickets as we stretched them out to him. This almost happened on the coaster as well. We could have just walked passed the girl working there, but gave her the tickets and she just kinda look at us for a second before taking them. The beach was a very happy place and just seemed like it was filled with really nice people. We had a really fun afternoon in Santa Cruz. From here we drove toward our hotel in Monterey. This shouldn't have been a long drive, but we ran into quite a bit of traffic and had some long bumper-to-bumper waits. We drove through some pretty farm land and eventually entered Monterey. We checked into our hotel and were happy to find it a very quiet place, even though it was close to the airport. I think during our whole stay I only noticed the sound from two planes, and neither was late at night or early in the morning, so we were very pleased. We drove into Monterey to get some dinner and went to a strip of restaurants and shops called Cannery Row.

We were really disappointed with this area and Monterey as a whole. We weren't expecting to be blown away by anything, but it was really touristy and the place we ate at wasn't anything special. The two ladies and four kids sitting at the table next to ours didn't help matters. They seemed to yell non-stop during our entire meal. But oh well. We went to Ghiradelli's afterward to get some ice cream for me and hot chocolate for Deanna. It had started to get cold and she needed a little warm up. We drove through the downtown area and liked that a little more. We wished we would have walked around there instead, in retrospect. We finally made it back to the hotel, which was comfortable and a nice size and watched a movie, finally getting to kick back and rest a little.

A photo in the adjustable bathroom mirrors in our Monterey hotel, before we left in the morning.

We left Monterey early in the morning and drove toward Big Sur, which was not very far away at all. As we got closer, the mountain ranges to our left grew bigger and bigger.
We crossed over a couple of older-looking tall bridges that made Deanna squirm and then entered into Big Sur. There is not a lot there, it's mostly comprised of a couple of state parks, and a couple of small shopping areas. We went to the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park first and got out to hike for a little bit. A couple of the paths were closed due to the wild fires, so our choices were a little limited. Deanna had told me previous to the trip that she was not doing any hiking. I dismissed this and figured once she got into the beauty of nature she would be into it. I was sorely mistaken. We walked the trail for 10 minutes or so and she was done, so we turned back around. Deanna wasn't feeling great on this day, so it wasn't the best time to be in an area based solely on outdoor activities. We got back in the car and drove to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (She and her husband were responsible for the conservation of the area, which is why so many areas are named after them). This park had a short trail leading to a really beautiful view of the ocean and a waterfall spilling out into it. Deanna was a trooper and came out on the trail with me. She was feeling a little better at this point, and perked up a little once we got out to the waterfall.

This is the tunnel that we walked through on the trail that goes under CA 1.

A panorama of the view from the end of the trail. You can click it for a larger view.

A closer view of the McWay Waterfall

us on the trail

A bird that I got some pictures of as we were leaving the park. I haven't been able to figure out what it is yet, so if any bird folks out there know, please comment below. (UPDATED: My buddy Jack who comes into the lab at work from time to time, and is a bird phenom, was able to identify this bird in the blink of an eye; it is a Steller's Jay.)

From there we started to search for Pfieffer Beach. We found a couple of sets of directions to it, but they were all proud of the fact that the road leading to it was not labeled. So we had to turn around once or twice to find it. We went down a 2-mile thin, winding road to get to the beach. It was really cold and windy once we finally made it there, so we didn't stay for long.

We amused ourselves for a while watching a couple of kids doing flips down the sand dunes and huddled behind a big rock by the ocean to shield ourselves from the wind. It was a pretty beach, but not the best beach experience ever.
On the way out we did see these beautiful pine trees that had their roots exposed. We snapped a couple pictures, then made our way back up the curvy road.
We checked into the Glen Oaks Motel after the beach and were really happy to see the posh room we got. The property didn't look like much from the outside, but the 60's mod room really saved Deanna's day. She was quick to correct me in that THIS was her favorite hotel. The bathroom was really outstanding as well and featured heated stone floors, a giant round mirror, and expansive walk in shower. We spent the rest of our day here, playing with the puppy at the motel office, napping, and then we getting a late lunch. We ate dinner (ok, it was actually just dessert) at the restaurant across the street, and it was tasty.The rest of the night was laid back. We played scrabble, one of many games the motel provided and got to bed pretty early.

HONEYMOON! (Days 3 & 4)

We started our day feeling very refreshed. We had really enjoyed our stay at the Wharf Master's Inn in Point Arena and were ready for another full day of travel. As we started back down Ca 1 we approached Gualala, which Deanna and I both enjoyed saying each time we saw a sign for it. I threw on the brakes and pulled off rather suddenly when I saw these beauties on the side of the road.


There were about six full sized metal dinosaurs (and a King Kong) stationed at a landscaping business on the side of the road. There were a few smaller ones scattered around as well. They were a fun surprise early on in our day.
Our first scheduled stop of the day was the Salt Point State Park. We saw a general sign for the park area, which was then scattered with exits to access the different beaches. Deanna saw a really pretty inlet as we were coming around the bend of a cliff and said "THAT ONE! GET US THERE!". As luck would have it there was a sign shortly after that and we were able to get to Stump Beach. There was only one other car in the parking area as we pulled in, and had very little company the whole time we were there, which was nice. The beach was beautiful and really reminded me of the Oregon coast where my grandparents lived. It was a really breathtaking view when we came out of the pine tree lined area and got a full view of the beach. (see panorama)

Stump Beach at Salt Point State Park

We have fun going down the big set of wooden steps and exploring the tide pools and beach. It was very peaceful and quiet. We skipped some of the stones that lined portions of the sand on the water, and took in the view.


We took our last looks at Stump Beach and started back up the stairs. We hoped back in the car and came across many many stunning views. There were a lot of pull off shoulders on Ca 1 for people to stop and take pictures, and we stopped at a few of those. Here is an attempted panorama from one of those, but it didn't stitch together too cleanly with the shifting ocean and expansive view. Its still pretty though...


This one is almost a 360 degree view, so the rental car on the left and Deanna on the right were actually pretty close to each other. Deanna is looking at a lizard in the brush there. We saw a couple of these on this day at different places.
They weren't huge. If I stretched my thumb and pointer finger as far apart as I could, it was probably about that long from head to tail. At one of these shoulders we saw coming up we noticed a crowd of five or six cars were pulled off. This was a rare site. At this point in the trip we could drive for 20 minutes without seeing a car in front of us or behind us. We took this as a cue and pulled off behind a pickup truck with a rack on it. After a few seconds we said "SURFERS". I had seen one guy surfing earlier this morning from the balcony of our hotel room, but this was our first glimpse of a group. Deanna sat in the car for a couple minutes refilling the film in her camera. I got out to explore and discovered this sign and a group of seals on the beach below.
We were really excited and found a semi-steep trail down to the sand. (The pull off was pretty high up on a cliff, as was most of the road) We got down and checked out the surfers briefly then got to see the seals from across a waterway connecting with the ocean.

We had binoculars with us and could see them pretty clearly through those. I am not 100% sure they are seals, but they didn't look like the sea lions we eventually saw in San Francisco. We watched them play and swim for a while before heading back to the road. The drive to San Francisco seemed to take a while. The road turned inland for a while, but it still had some nice views of rolling hills and livestock. We stopped at Point Reyes for Lunch at the Cowboy Cafe and got some really good pulled pork sandwiches. We then pushed on the San Francisco and got treated to some really dramatic views from VERY high cliffs.
Before driving into San Francisco we pulled off at the Golden Gate Recreation Park and took in the view.

It was pretty cold and very windy up there, but such a view. Deanna was a little grumpy at this point from riding in the car for so long, but I think she had cheered up by the time we were done.
There was a former military base at the same site that we explored a little before heading into the city. We got to our hotel, "The Mosser" and after circling the block 3 times (which took a while) we were able to park and work things out with valet. We stored the car for the next two nights and opted to travel San Francisco on foot and by public transit. After settling into our tiny but cute hotel room we met up with our friends Chris and Erica and got some dinner with them. We ate well and had a fun first night out in the city.
Chris and Erica were nice enough to take Friday off, so the whole next day was spent touring the city with them. And they were very good tour guides. We took an old trolley train to Fisherman's Wharf at Pier 39, which is a big tourist area.

Deanna, Chris, and Erica at Pier 39

We found a carousel there and Deanna almost immediately talked everyone into riding.
Deanna is riding sidesaddle here if you can't figure out what your seeing in the picture. We all turned into 5 year old pretty quickly once we got on.
Also at the pier are the famous seal lion rafts. We spent a while there watching them bellow and push each other off the floats. They were very animated and seemed like seasoned professional at entertaining the onlookers.

We walked further down the waterfront and stopped at the Musee Mechanique, a museum of old coin-op machines(all working) that you could actually play. We used up a roll of quarters there pretty quickly between the four of us. Deanna and I both like old, mechanical things, so this place really got us worked up.

For lunch we went to the In and Out Burger, which I had been anticipating for a while. It didn't let me down, and I think everyone enjoyed a nice greasy burger and fries on our fun day out.
We then waited in line for the famous trolley cars with the open sides. Chris and I risked life and limb and rode on the outside. We got off at Lombard Street (the most crooked street in the world) and walked down that. It was a beautiful street with lots of flowers and pretty houses.
From there we got back on the trolley car and headed toward Chris and Erica's area of town in the Haight. They toured us through Golden Gate Park and took us to a really beautiful art museum (De Young). We went up to the 9th floor of the museum which had walls of glass from floor to ceiling all the way around, giving us a full view of the city in all directions.

Inside Elevator At De Young Museum

The museum was wonderfully designed and had a lot of art built into the structure, like this gold leaf wall that was on both sides of a tunnel you went through at the entrance.
We got some dinner with Chris and Erica at a fun place called "Cha Cha Cha" before heading back to our hotel for the night. We really felt like we saw the whole city (I know we didn't) in that day. Thanks to Chris and Erica for showing us all the tourist traps and all of the stuff we would have never discovered if we were on our own.