Another good morning! Up at 0630 and just jotting down some notes before we get cleaned up and head out for the day. This will be our most aggressive driving day because of our destination goal: North Redondo Beach and Conor's apartment. Approximately 300miles in 1 day... more than we've done the whole trip. Rosie and I just know we're going to need as much time as possible provisioning Conor apartment while we're in SoCal.
Drive plan of the day:
- Stick to PCH as much as we can through:
- San Luis Obispo
- Pismo Beach
- Oceano
- Bromela
- Guadalupe
- Orcutt
- Lompoc
- Las Cruces
- North up to Solvang on Hwy 101
- Back south onto PCH in Las Cruces, where PCH turns into Hwy 101
- Capitan
- Past Goleta
- Lunch in Santa Barbara
- Carpinteria
- Ventura
- Exit back on to PCH via Oxnard
- Past Port Hueneme
- Quick stop at Neptune's Net
- On to Malibu
- Santa Monica
- Past LAX
- to North Redondo Beach
I planned on driving us to Solvang and then I'd give over driving to Conor to take us down to his city.
Back to the blog:
The day before we'd asked around for a good place for breakfast... turns out the small restaurant you might miss if you weren't looking for it near where the DSRV is parked, Frankie & Lola's, was highly recommended and we piled into the SUV and drove the short distance at 0745. Drove because we wanted to take a quick drive out to Morro Bay rock just to say, 'been there, done that' after breakfast. The weather this morning: cool, gray, overcast and misty. Frankie and Lola's appearance isn't anything to write home about, very simple and functional. Having said that, breakfast was great! The cook/chef actual came out and hand delivered by grits and butter! Nice touch. Found out that Conor like's a good corned beef hash as his meat for breakfast like someone else I know... Me! :-)
After breakfast we drove over to Morro Rock via the one road, Coleman Drive. There were already more than a handful of cars/trucks already there parked with their occupants either fishing, surfing or just looking. The road only goes about halfway round the base of the rock and you're not allowed to climb it at all. You get a very nice view of the entrance to Morro Bay harbor and of the harbor in general and the massive power plant adjacent to the city. Drove back to the hotel, packed the SUV and checked out by 0915. We really enjoyed our time in Morro Bay.
Continued on Hwy 101 until we hit Pismo Beach. Exited there as soon as we saw signs back onto PCH/Hwy 1 and headed on to Guadalupe. The most impressive thing to me about the drive on Hwy 1 through this part of the state was the agriculture. Agriculture was all over the place and of all types of growth. It was really expansive and just felt larger than the agriculture in Ventura Valley. Conor did tell us that this part of California or California in general was known as the 'Salad Bowl' of the country. Certainly fits!
Highway 1 in this part of the state took us through Orcutt, past Vandenburg Air Force Base and it's related hamlet, Vandenburg Village, on down to Lompoc. I'm not sure why I wanted to go through Lompoc so badly. Conor had advised us that there was not much there except for a prison... and he was right. Definitely just a pass through. I could have taken Rt. 246 out of Lompoc directly to Solvang but, I wanted to do as much of PCH as possible so we continued down to Las Cruces which added an extra 10miles to the journey. No big deal. Once we hit Las Cruces we went north on Hwy 101 until we reached Solvang at 1145. Once in Solvang you feel like you've been transported to Denmark - Danish architecture and shops everywhere... until you hear everyone speaking then, you feel like you're in Europe in general because of the variety of dialects you hear being spoken along the streets and buildings of the town.
On this Thursday, the city was quite busy and it took us a while to find parking. Once parked we strolled around some just enjoying the shops, people and architecture. We did just a tiny bit of souvenir shopping. My most notable purchase was a pair of 'lighted' reading glasses for Rosie and I. The day had cleared and was gorgeous again. Rosie had read on trip advisor that there was a miniature horse farm on the outskirts of the city that was free to visit and very cool so, we headed out there for a visit. The Quicksilver Farm specialized in miniature horses and there were quite a few and they were adorable! Rosie was in heaven! Spent a good 20mins there just taking photos, she also bought a t-shirt, before leaving to continue our trip south and to look for a place for lunch. Sadly, we found no place of interest for lunch as Conor drove back through Solvang and we continued back onto Hwy 101 south to Las Cruces where the highway bends to the left, more southeasterly, and on to Santa Barbara - where I knew we could get a good lunch. We'd left Solvang at ~1245.
An hour later we'd taken one of the Santa Barbara exits with Stearns Wharf on the beach in Santa Barbara in mind. The Wharf is a reinforced pier with stores and restaurants perched upon it and sturdy enough for vehicles to buy parking tickets, drive onto the wharf and park. We found parking near the end of the wharf and got out. We were definitely peckish, time was 1345, and the first interesting restaurant we saw was Moby Dick's so, in we went. We had to wait for about 10 mins to get seated, no worries, and they seated us by a table looking out into Santa Barbara's small harbor where there were a dozen small sailboats racing! Conor was very interested since he's taken up sailing lessons himself. For lunch: Rosie ordered Caesar's Salad with shrimp; Conor had the same with salmon, and; I enjoyed fish and chips. Enjoyed our lunch but we were itching to get back on the road for Redondo. Departed Stearn's Wharf at 1500... we still had another 100miles to go.
Stayed on the 101 until we took an exit for Oxnard and PCH. We wound our way through Oxnard. Passed north of Port Hueneme and waved at my former base, Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) West, Pt. Mugu, formerly Pacific Missile Test Center (PMTC) on our way to a brief stop at Neptune's Net for old times sake. We just took a biology break and made a quick pass through the Net before hitting PCH south again towards Malibu. I have to admit I may have dozed off some during this leg of our trip. I do recall hearing Rosie say, Zuma Beach and Paradise Cove. :-) We made our way through all of the beach communities including Malibu and Santa Monica before taking the I-10 to the I-405 south to exit off towards his apartment in North Redondo Beach. Arrived at ~1730.
We unpacked the SUV and started our hectic shopping spree! First, Conor and I drove to his nearest Post Office to pick up some mailers while Rosie stayed back to sort through our luggage and purchases during the week. Got back with 3 mailers, picked up Rosie and headed out to the nearest IKEA to shop for whatever we needed to begin provisioning his apartment.
Side Note: Conor doesn't have alot of space in his ground level apartment off of Grant Avenue but, he does have a single car garage and a very small back porch/patio. Besides the brand new refrigerator we helped him acquire, he only had his trappings from college days which include a bed, an IKEA desk and storage furniture, no chairs except for the fold out canvas one he uses and some odds and ends in kitchenware.
We purchased quite a bit while in IKEA including a sofa and throw rug. The sofa would be delivered on Friday - sometime. Other purchases: 4 chairs, some tupperware-like storage containers, hot pads, a full length mirror for his bedroom and, a garbage can. We had to keep in mind the constraints of his small accommodations. Conor had done a good job of measuring how big things could be to fit inside his apartment. Left IKEA and headed towards Sam's Club. Unfortunately it was closed! Not a complete loss because we'd be back early in the morning - Conor didn't know that Sam's opens at 7am for particular Club members - to continue our shopping and we found an IN-N-Out burger place for dinner nearby. Conor treated. :-) Decided, due to these special circumstances, to head over to Target to do some shopping and it was open. On this evening Rosie and Conor bought a full size blow up mattress for us to sleep on and 4 pillows.
Got back to his apartment by 2145 via a liquor store near his place where I bought some Glen Morangie Quinta Ruban and a bottle of Maker's Mark for his house warming gift. Unloaded the SUV, quite thankful for how big it was which really helped with the shopping we were doing, and spent the next hour building his 4 chairs and blowing up the air mattress for our bed. Before hitting the air 'rack', enjoyed a good jigger of single malt on ice!
Was probably the least fun traveling day of the trip so far because we felt a bit of pressure to get to North Redondo but, a very good day nonetheless.
It's gonna be another busy day tomorrow, Friday, 7/6/2012!
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