Road Trip Time - Santa Monica to San Francisco 3-5 Jan '12

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With a little adjustment to driving on the wrong side of the road for Anna-woo and me orientating the map correctly, we were cruising up the Pacific Highway 1 at the start of our 1st US Road Trip to San Francisco.

Our first overnight stay was scheduled to be Santa Maria (about 160 miles from Santa Monica) so we sat back and drank in the coastline views as we wound our way through Malibu and onto Santa Barbara for another fantastic pizza lunch. Santa Barbara looks like a great place to spend time and we encountered more lovely friendliness from the locals.

A hard right inland then brought us up to Santa Maria for a well deserved rest. Embracing some spontaneity we had not pre-booked a place to stay and sourced a typical roadside motel. The owner was very welcoming and chatty but American shows and my over active imagination evoked a feeling that this was a good location for a serial killer movie!! It was easy to be distracted by a hunt for a local bar.

We hit gold with Shaw's Steakhouse which purveyed both great beer and company. Our friends for the evening were Glenn (an ex-Liverpool player from the mid-80s) and Gerald who were great fun and gave us good tips for San Fran. After a restful if slightly alert sleep we awoke fresh and ready for the next leg to Monterey via Carmel (where Doris lives!).

Breakfast was enjoyed in a town called San Luis Osbispo which is delightfully nestled amongst spectacular hills. Appropriately filled up at Fat Cat's (it was a huge brekkie!) we swung coastwards again and looking forward to stopping at Big Sur.

Just when we felt we had not seen sights as inspirational as the NZ side of the Pacific bam.... we were spiralling upwards amongst the mountains which spawned out of the sea and gave the most majestic views you could ever hope to see. It was suddenly like being in the Coramandel again in NZ.

Following Anna's superbly calm driving around the corkscrew bends we had a lovely drink at a posh lodge in Big Sur and twisted on through to Carmel. Anna was hopeful of seeing Doris but had to settle for a dreamy cup of hot caramel apple cider juice (non alcoholic!) - it was pure liquid apple pie!! It was a lovely taster pre arriving in Monterey for lovely wharf walks and fantastic food. (San Francisco is now tantalising close!).

After a home made breakfast (well bought from the Whole Foods store) we continued onto Santa Cruz for a brief pitstop and decided to track inland to San Francisco passing through the mountains and over the San Andreas faultline (well so the map said, we didn't see it!). Route 101 then brought us on the final leg into San Francisco with amazing views of the bay and the downtown skyline.

Through the traffic and around the Embarcado we passed all the piers and found our hotel on the edge of Fisherman's Wharf and had a fantastic stroll around the bay for our first glimpses of the Golden Gate and Alcatraz which whet our appetite for the future adventures we were going to have here......

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Comments

[charlotte Pitt]

Hi Both , Really been enjoying reading your blog and especially looking at the fab pics you've both been taking. The little ones have been impressed with the pics of all the lovely food ... Alfie really liked the 'slice' of pizza ... yum !!! SO GLAD YOUR HAVIG A FAB TIME LUV CHAR + CO X X X

[Craig]

Next time you are in Santa Barbara you should definitely stop and take a day to enjoy the area. I suggest going to dinner down by the pier and then getting the local's favorite, McConnell's Ice Cream, for dessert. Stroll around State Street and take in the city - it may be small but it's huge in the way of a friendly, beachy vibe. If you need a place to stay for the night, there are plenty of budget-friendly hotels if you know where to look. I enjoy the Sandman Inn (www.thesandmaninn.com) on upper State. My family and I stumbled across the hotel a few years ago and have been going back ever since. Great service and great value!

[Tim]

This sounds like a spectacular road trip! I love long road trips like this where you stop off in multiple places and explore new things. I did San Diego to Lake Tahoe one year and it was awesome seeing all sorts of things! Santa Barbara was of course one of the many destinations we went and we loved it! Perfect beaches and great places to eat as well. Their downtown area was really nice too and looks like they had some excellent shopping too! We only got to stay a night but we've been back since and it's now a one of our favorite places to go. The Sandman Inn (www.thesandmaninn.com) is where we stayed and it was great. Cheap and they gave us a great room for a comfortable stay!