California-Driving the Coast; are our family adventures over?

Magnet #8

April 2005 - California

Driving the California coast with the boys sounded like a fabulous idea. Pete and I had driven the Coast Highway during a work trip in the late 90’s and liked the idea of repeating the gorgeous road trip. We felt positive our teen and pre-teen would also find the scenery and the curvy highway 1 just as much fun as we did. What we hadn’t counted on is that teenagers don’t necessarily want to be in a car for THAT much time with their parents.

Phil was 14 and Henrik, 11, this particular spring break trip. Trying to broaden their horizons, I figured seeing what Cali has to offer from San Diego to San Fran might offer great geographical and cultural experiences.

First destination —San Diego!

I flew out on an earlier flight on Friday March 18th, to catch up with my childhood friend, Carol and her husband John. By the time my family joined me at the Hampton Inn in Delmar at 10 pm, I felt relaxed and happy after lunch at Georges before an afternoon of shopping in the cute village of Del Mar, just minutes from San Diego.

Travel Tip- Georges at the Cove restaurant is fantastic! Try to arrive in time to snag a seat next to the railing for fabulous views of the Pacific.

Who said “Moms Day Out '' is only for mothers of preschoolers?

Before leaving on a later flight with Phil and Henrik, Pete had stopped by the AAA to gather all the necessary paper maps for our drive up the coast. Despite Google having gone live in 1998, I still wasn’t internet savvy. Instead, I still relied on friends to give me pointers on where to go and what to see. This trip was no exception.

After the four of us had an early breakfast with Carol and John, we headed off for a must-see in San Diego; the zoo, of course! In our usual family style, we blitzed the entire zoo in under four hours, making haste mid-afternoon for our next destination, Los Angeles. Only the four of us would try to visit the San Diego Zoo AND make dinner plans three hours away in Los Angeles on the same day.

In our true family style, we not only made it to LA but managed to be on time for dinner at La Fonda with our friends from back home. They never showed but we had a great time watching the mariachi band play near our table (unfortunately La Fonda appears to have recently closed).

We returned to our hotel bone weary. I had my first inkling that perhaps I’d been a bit too ambitious with the trip planning. I had forgotten again, a big factor that can affect long distance travel —-

Jet Lag!

The three hour time difference seemed to sneak up on all of us. What was needed was a good nights sleep. Fortunately, our LA hotel, Sheraton Universal, was located just minutes from the next days much anticipated tourist site, Universal Studios!

Pete and I got up early to enjoy a bit of quiet time in the hotel hot tub before we packed up, checked out and headed to the famous studio and theme park. Of course, we were there the minute the gates opened!

This park is fabulous and I highly recommend it for everyone! There is something of interest for all ages! We covered every inch of the amusement park and managed to squeeze in the great backlot tour of the famous studio during our one day visit.

Where else can you hobnob with some of the characters from your favorite movies of a particular era? It being 2005, we kibitzed with Beetlejuice, took our photo next to the Back to the Future car, rode Mummy's Revenge (well, actually just Henrik and I braved the very thrilling roller coaster), walked through studio “sets” of Backdraft and Fortress Van Helsing before taking the tram ride where we zipped by the Psycho house, Jaws lagoon, and an actual movie set of apparent city destruction from War of the Worlds, set to release in theaters later that summer). Henrik and I even managed to get a nice photo with Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon next to their space capsule from the movie Apollo 13.

Despite being considered one of Hollywood's biggest box office flops, the show Water World is still being enjoyed today. With the many spectacular stunts and special effects, we voted WW our family favorite.

Travel tip? If you ever find yourself in Los Angeles, visiting Universal Studios is in my opinion a must-see.

After a great day at the park, we headed to our next hotel located in Santa Barbara. This was Pete’s and my second visit to SB. We sure hoped this time, we’d have a less creepy stay.

Creepy you say?

When Pete and I drove the coast in the late 90’s, his secretary found us a room we assumed to be IN Santa Barbara. Arriving late at night, boy were we in for a surprise.

I’m not sure what part of town this motel was located in but I’m positive, we weren’t even close to a charming part of Santa Barbara. I do however; remember there being a bar and maybe a pawn shop close by.

On that particular hot, muggy night, we discovered to our dismay that not only was there NO air conditioning in our room, but in order to have any fresh air, we had to keep the sliding glass door leading to a common area open. Too exhausted to do much that evening, we tried to sleep. Something spooked us both awake around 3:45 am and we decided to call it quits. We checked out super early and drove in search of the closest cup of coffee we could find (which turned out to be in Morro Bay).

Yet, I had heard so many wonderful things about Santa Barbara.

This trip, I was determined to find the charming, lovely Santa Barbara that is the backdrop for my favorite college soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. The hotel I found could actually be one of the first if not the first hotel I found using the internet, the Santa Barbara Inn.

What I still hadn’t learned was how to research weather trends. Perhaps we would have found a hotel with an indoor pool if I had known that the average temperature in Santa Barbara in March is in the low 60’s, not exactly beach weather. Somehow, we were under the illusion that southern California is always warm and sunny. Our overnight stay with the boys was fine but again, we never found downtown Santa Barbara after driving around for a while with our paper map.

We did, however, find Stearns Wharf, but with the sea breeze ripping chilly air over us while we ate, we made it a fast meal. I do remember that this was where we encountered our first magical “heat lamp” standing next to our table—now commonly referred to as a patio heater.

Ok, that heater was pretty darn neat. I wished right then and there, I could take it back for our deck in PA. Writing about this makes me remember two other items my grandmother, Zerelda Matthews, discovered for herself and brought back to Kentucky from California. From her trips to Palm Springs, in the early 70’s, she brought back Pringles potato chips and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (which ironically was made famous in Santa Barbara in the 1950’s).

Anyway, back to Santa Barbara, 2005. We returned to the inn after dinner where the boys were perfectly content watching tv. Pete’s notes simply state we were “zombies”. After researching the SBI, the lovely hotel has recently undergone fabulous renovations.

Mother Nature made sure that we were going to have plenty of time to catch up on our rest. Something big was brewing in the sky.

We just didn’t know it yet.

Again, it was probably a very good thing we were unaware.

Next destination? Big Sur. Friends had given me reservation information on renting a two bedroom cabin situated amongst the big redwoods, maples, live oaks, and sycamores to name a few. It sounded like heaven. First though, we had to get there.

Despite this only being day three of our week long adventure, things were pretty quiet in the back seat of our rental. Phil at 14 ½ definitely appeared more moody these days. Both boys had been good sports so far but we’d spent an awful lot of time together on the go or in the car.

On a lark, two hours into our drive, I suggested, “How bout we visit Hearst Castle? I hear it's pretty cool. Your dad’s been there and said it’s fantastic”.

And that was it. Our teenage son said rather emphatically from the back seat —--

“I NEVER want to be in a car with you all this much again!”

“Well, guess we’re not going to the castle”, I must have said to Pete as Phil’s words fully registered.

After an unfortunate picnic at a roadside table (it proved to be difficult to find good sandwiches along the way), we made a beeline for our cabin in the woods near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only new arrival to the area.

Relentless rain decided to make itself a guest during our entire stay.

We had reserved our cabin for two nights. At first , we stayed optimistic that the weather might improve at any time. We managed to do a bit of hiking, decided NOT to forge a nearby swollen river in our car, and enjoyed one swim in the heated pool near our cabin despite the never ending torrential rainfall.

We became so eager to stay dry, the boys agreed to hit the local art galleries. Yay, this was becoming more of a cultural experience after all.

Despite our bad luck with the weather, I can recommend a stay in Big Sur. The area endured two horrific fires since 2005 but from what I’ve read, the Jane Pfeiffer Burns State Park is open, better than ever. PS- I cannot find any records of where exactly our cabin was located near the state park. If anyone can help identify this cabin's location, please let me know.

Last stop —-San Francisco! A great city I highly suggest visiting. There is so much to do for all ages. We explored Muir Woods and Muir beach, the Exploratorium, drove Lombard Street, and crossed the iconic Golden Gate bridge.

The magnet moment was riding the famous trolley after our visit to Alcatraz (where instead of a magnet, I bought a “prisoner in a shot glass”). We enjoyed the ferry ride out and tour of the infamous prison but it was the trolley ride that brought the biggest wow factor for the boys.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites Hotel not far from the airport. We are big fans of the Embassy brand and say to travelers, you can’t go wrong. We haven’t had one bad experience to date at this Hilton owned hotel chain.

Travel Tip - If you do find yourself near SFO (the airport code for San Fran), fabulous steaks can be enjoyed at Kincaids. We've been three times and can't wait to go back again.

I am assuming our fight home was uneventful. Perhaps, we didn’t arrive back to Wallingford as rested as hoped, but overall, it was a great trip. Well, I thought it was.

It turns out, one of my family travelers meant it when he said, “I never want to be in a car this long with you all again!”; forever changing how future trips would be planned and executed.