PCH Day Seven
November 26, 2010 10:13 pm [No Comments]
I’m totally beat, so not gonna post much. Been a busy day and 7 days on the road is taking it’s toll.
Today we found a Yoshinoya on our way out of LA, went to Huntington Beach, San Juan Capistrano, Carlsbad and Pizza Port, Carlsbad beach for sunset, Stone Brewing Company madhouse where I got two growlers and a new beanie, Lost Abbey which we bypassed cause it looked shady, checked in at the Marriott in San Diego, got some decent Thai at Royal Thai and now I’m gonna sleep, sleep, sleep!
Tomorrow we start back to Seattle on I-5. 1238 miles on the same highway, here we come!
PCH Day Six
November 25, 2010 8:41 pm [No Comments]
Happy Thanksgiving ya’ll!
Today we got up fairly early, packed up and left Santa Barbara for the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles. After a strange trip down the 101 and 1 including a weird 2 mile stretch of beach that was nothing but giant RVs we eventually made it through Malibu and into Santa Monica. We took a quick trip down the pier but it was mainly a freakshow and we kept on. Eventually we ended up at Venice Beach. I wanted Courtney to see that particular brand of freak show; specifically muscle beach. Unfortunately all the body builders took the day off so we spent a few minutes checking out the skate park and then just walked the boardwalk for a while.
One thing that stuck out was the absurd “Medical Marijuana” booths all along the boardwalk. They all claim to have a “doctor” who is “in” and can take “walk in appointments”. Ignore that the doctors all look like bombed out stoners. I’m guessing all it takes to get a “prescription” there is for you to say “Oh, my aching one hundred dollar bill.”
Might as well just legalize it.
Anyway, Courtney hated Venice saying “I feel like I am going to get syphilis” so we retired to a nice drive down Sunset Boulevard and eventually landed in Hollywood. We saw the sights, groaned at the retarded ass superheros and called it quits. Hollywood is sad and depressing.
Next was a trip to a certain corner which was supposed to have good views of “The Sign”, which it did. And then we took a drive up Mulholland Drive. That was pretty great. We pulled off at the Hollywood Bowl lookout and got great views of downtown, the bowl, the sign and the valley.
Finally, we had had enough so we pulled over, woke up the Priceline app and landed a nice 4 star suite in West Hollywood for $99. Pretty awesome. We’re snug and cozy at the Le Montrose Suite Hotel and we just finished turkey dinner at the restaurant downstairs. It was delicious.
Tomorrow is our last day heading south. We’re planning on driving to San Diego, seeing the sights and sleeping there. Then we’ll turn around and start heading back home. The return trip is going to be a quick one, straight up I-5 with few stops.
PCH Day Five
November 24, 2010 11:09 pm [No Comments]
We’ve settled in at the Hotel Mar Monte in Santa Barbara and as is becoming a clear pattern, I am pooped. We got up around 8am this morning in Monterey, had a killer breakfast at The Trailside Cafe, spent a few hours wandering the awesome Monterey Bay aquarium, meandered along 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, braved the cliffs and sharp turns of Big Sur, had a few quick beer samples at Firestone Walker brewery in Paso Robles and some good pizza just down the street at Griff’s Pizzeria and Bistro and made the 2 hour drive in the dark to Santa Barbara.
It’s been a long, busy day.
We’re about 100 miles from Los Angeles, and that’s tomorrow’s destination. We’ll get started early and probably spend most of the day in LA. We haven’t decided if we’ll sleep there tomorrow or if we’ll continue on.
Till then, I am updating all five posts so far with pictures from that day, so check em out!
PCH Day Four
November 24, 2010 9:19 am [1 Comment]
On day four we wake up in Santa Rosa, me with a hangover and Courtney with general laziness. For the first time on the trip we kind of slept in and had a slow start. Our destination for the day is Monterey but before we get there…
Courtney had planned a loop of the Napa valley through wine country. Once we got ourselves moving we headed for Calistoga, which was a bit of a back track but necessary to get far enough north to visit the areas we wanted to see. Calistoga we just passed right though on our way to St. Helena. There we took a short little detour through the parking lot of Beringer winery which was neat but didn’t hold a lot of interest for us. Our real destination was Yountsville which is where Thomas Keller’s Bouchon restaurant and Bouchon Bakery is. We made a quick stop there for super yummy pastries and baked goods and kept on rolling.
The drive through Napa was very pretty. The vineyards stretch on forever and make for great scenery, but neither of us had much interest in wine country so we just cruised through.
Next stop was Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale which took us through the east bay area and our first In N’ Out Burger stop of the trip. In N’ Out was delicious as usual and Weird Stuff Warehouse was a bit of a letdown. I was hoping for a giant warehouse of surplus electronic parts but it was mostly just e-junk from the computer industry. Lots of routers and switches, network cards and the like. It was fun to walk around in the shelves but nothing caught my eye.
To come:
Santa Cruz
Traffic on 1 to Monterey
Cannery Row Brewery
An early night at the Monterey Bay Lodge
PCH Day Three
November 22, 2010 11:49 pm [No Comments]
Today was Day Three, which starts at the Ravenwood Motel in Eureka, CA. I forgot to mention last night that in last 100 miles or so we had reached California!
I’ve finally put up my pictures so far. When I have more time I will pick out my favorite and include them in the posts, but till then, check out my Flickr set for the trip.
I’ve run out of steam tonight, so I will need to finish this post tomorrow. Hopefully I can catch up, although with all the awesome stuff we have planned, who knows. Till then, here’s a brief list of what we did today…
Breakfast at Ravenwood w/ Gary (great tips) and Perry
Trees of Mystery
Sky Trail
Tour Thru Tree
Klamath Coastal Route
Seascape by the harbor, scary
Lunch in Trinidad at Trinidad Eatery
Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse
House pricing, 1.3M
Quick stop in Eureka for Carson house and new tour guide @ Borders
Avenue of the Giants
Route 1 turnoff at Leggett
Nightmare driving scenario
Cliff conundrum
Fort Bragg and McDonalds
More scary
Courtney takes over
Jason takes a nap
Russian River w/ awesome growlers
Courtyard Marriot w/ free wifi
