USA 2019/2020 Santa Barbara to Monterey Jan 10 -12

California Coast pt 1: Santa Barbara to Monterey

10: Vegas to Santa Barbara
11: Santa Barbara to Monterey
12: Monterey to San Francisco

Jan 10

Vegas to Santa Barbara
Up early and ready to leave at 9 as planned.  NOT!
Past the Vegas sign - Drew, Ree and Elvis!

Peggy Sue’s 50s diner with dinosaurs and gorilla and turtles in the backyard
Holly the chip dropping waitress

Detour to Route 66
Initially boring the ......bottle and other stuff museum. Super cool

LONG detour back toward highway 101
Backroads and bumps

Santa Barbara - look left for coast and right for mountains.  Very beautiful.
Freeways - sheesh. Speed limit is definitely only a suggestion.

Dinner at Rudy’s Mexican with Carrie Lonis. 

Which Rudy’s?   The one without gridlock leading up to it.  The one with a “booth”.  The one opposite the old Mexican fort / mission.

Pacifica Suites.
Traditional 2 x doubles.
Also a couch - yay Drew.  Now for some (more) sheets.
Is it possible for soap to be used in the shower?
Is it possible to fail again at shower curtain etiquette.

Tomorrow is Monterey

Jan 11

Santa Barbara
Quick hotel breakfast. Fill in the blue paper choices and hand them in.
Solvang is the next stop
40 miles to “good seed coffee” for coffee and Danish things
  The mole hole
  Candy store
  Baby Leiderhosen
  Danish pastries

 Solvang Christmas trinket store with 2 c 50-60 yr store workers having a smoke out the back - customers shmustomers.
 Zoe’s spice store
Cool music type store

Spectacular highway 1

Elephant seals are not deep sleepers.
Baby seals and big makes.
Losers beach is just around the corner

Lunch in Cambria - little cafe with simple, good food.   Blueberry smoothie with sago?  Paninis, meatball soup, leftovers or philly steak.

Drive to Monterey
Stops for photos
A few tail gaiters and a bizarre white Mercedes - super quick or super slow
Big Sur - dark just before we arrived.

Monterey

Family airs some issues

Dinner - Zoe direct’s to fisherman’s wharf and then high quality Japanese.  Drew directs home.

Jan 12 - Early rise
Breakfast is small room, clean but with that feel of needing a proper clean to get rid of the sheen.
Zoe and Drew to aquarium feeding frenzy tour.
Feed the otters, behind the scenes, jellyfish, rays.....

LD / AD to Paris bakery. Locals.
Cafe Paris Monterey
Latte.  Yes latte.   Yes latte
Choc banana croissant and quiche
Ketchup.   4?  1 would have been fine

All meet at the aquarium
Steinbeck signs and cannery

Otters get fed.  Thick coats. Smart. Like ocean Kelpies.     They like Leo - tie themselves to it at night so rhymes don’t float away.  Females become surrogates to baby otters brought in to the aquarium.  Rosie the otter has been there 20 years.  Raised 15 babies (not her own).


Big red octopi

Cool jelly fish, some with luminescence

Amorous penguins and cute lil eel things

Shark movie
Ethical eating

Few blocks for no food but a nice cafe.

Hope to pick up bags (from the network server room) then the drive begins.

Drive toward Santa Cruz
Lunch in Watsonville at Erik’s deli cafe (Erik wasn’t in!).  Easy sandwiches.
Drew learns about refillable cups and tangent we are off to the trees.
How's the serenity?


Oakland airport
Car dropped in a flash the Uber XL to Airbnb