PCH Roadtrip – Homeward Bound

Last morning headed home.  What a trip.  Early start for a 9am flight.  We made it back to Austin in one piece and only mildly tired.  Still no kids so we’re on our own with the dog, Guinea Pig and snake!

What a list of Firsts though!!

Things to do
San Diego
Mustang
Pacific Ocean
Carlsbad
Beach Breakfast
Pacific Coast Highway
Solvang
Choux Buns in the US
Los Angeles
Griffiths Observatory
HollyWood Sign
Graumann Chinese Theater
Hollywood Boulevard
Sunset and Vine
Hollywood Hills
Elephant Seals
Hearst Castle
Cliff Driving
Lost Boys
Santa Carla
Santa Cruz
Merry Go Round
Sky Glider
Redwoods
Covered Bridges
Tiburon
San Francisco
SF Bay
Cable Cars
Fishermans Wharf
Golden Gate Bridge
Get Bored

Want better pictures of our trip?  Try Carol’s album on Facebook.

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PCH Roadtrip – Santa Cruz – San Francisco

Day Four

Carol Blog today.  First one ever.

Woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the ocean in Santa Cruz. Robert popped out for a morning coffee and we sat on the terrace having our Solvang pastries for breakfast with a beautiful, fresh view.

After breakfast we set out on the road heading for San Francisco.  Not too far into the journey we saw a local park with a covered bridge. Felton Covered Bridge.  A long time dream of mine was to see and photograph an old covered bridge. A few photos later, we are back on the road.

The next part of the journey was simply amazing. Coming off the coastal route today we headed through the redwood forests, stopping at Henry Cowell State Park. Parked the car for an hour and took a hiking trail down to the water…these trees are some size.

Not as big, we hear, as other redwood forests further north but still very impressive and bigger than we’ve seen before in height.

After our morning hike we headed back on the road to our next stop enroute – San Jose. We stopped here so that we could visit the Winchester Mansion. After watching the movie recently, I was expecting it to be spooky and was apprehensive about going on the tour.  However, when we arrived we paid our $40 for the tour as I was pleasantly surprised.  It was such a fun, quirky, beautiful house. Full of amazing craftsmanship and lots of innovative designs for the time. Mrs Winchester deserves quite a lot of credit for this.  Definitely glad we took the tour.

 

Feeling a bit hungry after the tour we stopped off at a local Burrito deli for a spot of lunch.

Excitedly, late afternoon we arrived in the ‘City by the bay’, passing over the Golden Gate Bridge. A first for the me and it didn’t disappoint. Amazing piece of engineering.

We were staying in Tiburon so headed there to check into our hotel before exploring the big city. Tiburon has a ferry service commuting to San Fran…this seamed a more relaxing option rather than driving into the city and trying to find a parking space.

It was a pleasant 5 minute walk from our hotel, the Lodge at Tiburon, to the ferry port. What a lovely 35 minute sail, passing the Golden Gate Bridge , the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz Island. Saved us a Bay Boat Tour.

Once in the city, we wanted to tick off the cable car experience. We were only spending a few hours in the city so we were happy with jumping on the cable car down to Fishermans Wharf for some dinner. The Trolley Car driver was sorry there were no seats for us and we had to hang off the edge. Little did he know this was my dream way of travelling on the tram!

A little bit chilly at this time of day, we were happy to try some clam chowder to heat us up and some Calamari.  Washed down with a local beer.  Tummies full and happy with our San Francisco whistle stop tour we headed back to our hotel. Missing the last ferry we got an Uber for only $5 extra. Arriving back at the hotel for 9pm we decided a night cap was needed at the hotel bar, before turning in. An early start tomorrow for the journey home…☹

PCH Roadtrip – Solvang – PCH – Santa Cruz (Santa Carla)

Day Three.

Excellent sleep in the Lodge in Solvang and we stopped at a bakery in town for breakfast.  Well we had breakfast in the hotel but stopped for Danish pastries for the journey and saw Choux Buns!!  These are a Robert and Carol favourite from back in the UK and we had never seen proper ones here in the US.  There are plenty of cream puffs but the cream is not proper cream.  So we had a couple of those for our Hobbit 2^nd breakfast…They were very good.  Solvang bakery had a great selection of proper European baked goods.  Recommended!

We did grab the pastries for the road as well but ended up eating them the next day!

Next stop was for a Winery/Vineyard.  It was Sunday morning though so we struggled.  We had been recommended Los Olivos  (Thanks Meg!) as a place to go so we popped along but we were too early to get in anywhere and we had a long road ahead of us.  Beautiful area though and worth the visit.

Then we were properly onto the Pacific Coast highway.  What a drive!  The views were absolutely AMAZING.  Like driving the Glens of Scotland only higher and with sheer cliffs on one side!

We stopped off to see some Elephant Seals, Short pit stop at Hearst Castle, Lunch at Ragged Point, decent food but service could have been better, (45 mins wait on a quiet day was not great)   and then headed further on to Santa Cruz.

The Bixby Bridge is worth the drive alone.  Amazing bridge and in an absolutely breathtaking setting.

Santa Cruz

Stopped here purely because as a young man I was a massive Lost Boys fan and this is where they filmed the movie.  It was called Santa Carla in the movie and weirdly other than one poster on the boardwalk there was no other mention of the film.  I supposed being dubbed the ‘Murder Capital of the World’ rubbed them wrong!  It was strange as we were able to walk around some of the locations and even heard other people talking about it but the folk in the shops hadn’t really heard about the movie (although they were teenagers…).

Anyway the Boardwalk is still there, the Merry go round, the sky glider, the bridge where they dangle off and the shops where the parents chat and meet up are all there.  It was amazing.  I was delighted.  We stayed in a nice little hotel called Casablanca on the beach which had a cool artisan vibe about it and we had a nice room overlooking the ocean.  The hotel has a Thai restaurant attached and we ate there.  Decent food.  Really enjoyed the walk around and we even had a go on the Sky Glider which was a little daunting for Carol!

I told you to stay off the Boardwalk!!!

Deep Fried Cheesecake??

Cry Little Sister

Creepy

Sky Glider

Dangle!

PCH Roadtrip – San Diego – LA – Solvang

Day Two

On the road early and headed first to the beach in San Diego (Pacific Beach) which was busy even at 8am and had some breakfast.  The place we had breakfast was right on the beach and the food was decent.  The service not so much and the fact on their menu they claim ownership of any pictures you hashtag them with means we won’t be promoting them as a business.  I doubt they would have a legal leg to stand on but it just strikes me as very cheeky.

Carol and I walked along the beach for a while and Carol took a wee paddle in the Pacific Ocean.  This was her first trip out to the West Coast so it was a historic moment!  After that we got on the road again.

Listening to our California playlist we went about 20 mins before I realized I need to make a short bio break (yes…I should have gone before I left Dad!).  We pulled off at the next random wee town and ended up in a place called Carlsbad (not the caverns one).  It was lovely and pretty tranquil.  Carol actually popped into a nail salon to get her nails done which I tried to find a public toilet.  We then walked around for a wee while and I had a lovely chat with the wee woman in the visitor center about the station building the Visitor Center is in.  It was the main train station till 1957 and was from the 1860’s and was little changed apart from a new floor and a lick of paint.  BTW – if you need the loo – the new station is about 100 yards further up the line!

Then we were onto LA!!

I’d traveled through the airport a few times but never been fully into LA before.  It was an eye opener.  We started by climbing up to the Griffiths Observatory which was the sight of countless movies and TV shows (Rebel without a cause, Adventures of Superman (George Reeves original), Men in Black, La La Land and many more have all been filmed in that location. Note – the is paid parking at the top of the hill but it fills up quickly.  Free parking at the bottom means a 20 min hike up hill to get there but it was a nice walk and well worth the effort.  It also happens to be the best place to see the HollyWood sign!

We hiked up from the free parking (paid was full) and enjoyed the stunning views.  You could see across the whole city from there and it was  good view of the Hollywood sign.  I would like a better camera in my iPhone though as it doesn’t take that sort of picture well!

A wee walk round the observatory and then a drink on their patio before heading into LA proper.

I thought the traffic would kill me but it was actually not too bad (I had psyched myself out) and we found some on street parking only a block from Hollywood Boulevard.  We parked in a wee quiet side street and thought…what was I worried about traffic fine, quiet and calm.  Great start….then we stepped out onto HollyWood Boulevard….OMG…insanity.  I’ve been to Picadilly Circus, Times Square and lots of busy places….not like this.  It was pandemonium.  Tons of people milling around looking at the stars and then a load of people selling stuff and some religious fanatics with megaphones…it was not what I expected.

This was a bucket list item for me and I got the things I wanted done but it was not what I thought it would be.  We did pick a Saturday afternoon just after a holiday so it was our own fault.

Lowlights : Too busy and tourists don’t understand that everyone else is not wrong and they are right.

Now…highlights – Walked along to Graumanns Chinese Theatre.  That was amazing.  We got to see so many of the concrete plaques in the ground.  Everyone from Abbot and Costello, Gregory Peck and John Wayne to Hugh Jackman, Harrison Ford and even wee Shirley Temple!  Very cool.  After a bite to eat at an excellent wee Chinese place off the main road we got out of Dodge quickly before I went a wee bit nuts!

It was mid afternoon by this point and the sun was shining so the top came down on the Mustang and we headed out of town onto Solvang.

The drive from LA to Solvang was amazing.  We drove along the Interstate for a while to get out of town then onto the highway along the coast.  More of that tomorrow but after a wee drive along the coast we cut inland to get to our hotel.  That was quite an amazing piece of driving.  Through the Los Padres national Forest and mountains.  Amazing scenery and it really rivaled the Glens of Scotland for outstanding natural beauty.

Solvang

Interesting wee town this one.  Danish heritage and has a very Danish feel to it.  The US has this thing across the land where some towns retained the feel of their original settlers and it’s definitely here.  Fredericksburg in Texas (German) is like this too.  All the shops have a Danish feel and it has amazing little Danish houses and buildings.  Well worth the detour to get here.  We staying in a wee Motel place in town, Svendsgaards Lodge, which also had a Danish feel and was clean and spacious and very comfy beds!

If you are ever in California and fancy a Snakebite (Lager, Cider and Blackcurrant) which is now banned in the UK but was a staple of my time in University then the Irish bar (Fitzpatricks) here does them!

Next onto the PCH!!!

Pacific Coast Highway – San Diego

Day One – San Diego.

A few wee twists with the road trip this time around.  Firstly we dropped the kids off at the airport and they headed to the UK and their grandparents in Scotland for a month so this is a parents only adventure.

Secondly, we drive from Texas this time.  We’re only having a few days away so we flew out to San Diego to start the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco.

We actually stayed at the airport after dropping off the kids (who are accompanied by Ben’s friend Wesley) and got a flight mid afternoon.  Alaska Airlines do a really good deal to a few place but SF and SD are some of them so we got a multi city ticket for an excellent price.  So off we went.

We arrive in San Diego at 4pm on the Friday and our hotel was right beside the airport.  So much so that we had to drive 15 mins out of our way to get our hire car then drive 15 mins back to get to the airport.  We could have shuttled quicker!  Note to self if staying at the same hotel again…leave the hire car till the next morning.

The Hire Car.

We wanted to do the journey in a way that was memorable so we pushed the boat out for an open top Mustang from Sixt and they gave us a ‘beaut Clark!’.  Wee sleek red number and we were very impressed.  It’s going well so far but I’m worried about being pulled over by Ponch or Jon from CHiPs so I’ve not gone all out with it!

Hotel.

We stayed for the night in the Sheraton Resort at the Marina in SD.  Very nice hotel, you do pay a resort fee but you get that back in drinks vouchers and bike/paddle board vouchers.  It’s right on the water and when we checked in we were moved from out lower tower room to a ground floor room which looked out on the bay so a nice little upgrade!  We had a nice walk around the resort then settled in one of the six bars/restaurants for a bite to eat.  The Tacos in Shoreline were excellent and we thought we’d be good but we should have ordered more as we got hungry later.

After dinner we moved inside to the hotel bar and sat there people watching for a little while.  The University of St Katherine had a ton of people in town for some conference so they created a party atmosphere.  We were pretty tired though so ended up in bed by 9pm! (to be fair that was 11pm our time).

I wish we could say we slept well that night but with the kids being on their first transatlantic flight it was a worry so we slept for a couple of hours but kept waking up when they had to change flights (they were Austin – JFK – Dublin – Glasgow).  According to my Fitbit we got about 3 hours of sleep in total till they touched down at the other end and were collected by their Grandad!

Woke up early the next day and as we were awake we got on the road early.

Roadtrip #3 – Day Eight – Lake Charles -Home

Well we made it back in one piece.  The last day started pretty misty but cleared up pretty quick.

We stayed overnight in in Lake Charles and it was a lovely wee place with perhaps a bit more confederate memorabilia and statues than we would like but the history of the place shone through.  Interestingly they had US flags around the bottom of the CSA monument which was interesting and shows the confusion that still exists I think in some of these little places in the Deep South.

Sitting on a lake (hence the name) it had some nice little eateries and a quirky art gallery which had a live chicken wandering about in it.  We had lunch and tried the Boudin balls in Tia Juanita’s Fish Camp for lunch.  Food was great and decent service too.

After a walk around and checking out the lake we got on the road for our final stint.

Once across the Texas border we stopped for our obligatory selfie with the state welcome sign and this rest stop was a wee bit different as it had a walkway out onto the swamp at the back so you could go out and try to see the gators or snakes.  We spotted a small turtle and nothing else but we’re sure these other things are in there.

After 2600 miles and 5 states over 7 nights we got back to Round Rock about 7pm on the Saturday night.  A good roadtrip and we saw so much of the country.  We may need to go South or West next time!

 

Roadtrip #3 – Day Seven – Orange Beach to Lake Charles

Day Seven.

Another travel day but with a stop.  We set off later from Orange beach because it was such a nice view and we got to wander on the beach.  I went down for a wee dip in the Gulf of Mexico but it was pretty cold.  The hotel obviously had a sense of humour which was nice and it was a nice relaxed way to start the day.

After our complimentary breakfast (Carol is obsessed with ‘complimentary breakfast’) we hit the road for a 3.5 hr drive to New Orleans (or N’awlins as we now call it).  This was our second roadtrip that took in a stop in New Orleans. I have to say it’s a bit too much for me really.

She’s on her holidays and she shared with her brother!

Very busy, very dirty and very touristy.  Bourbon street has a smell all along it which I am pretty sure is illegal unless you go to Canada or Colorado!  The roads are a nightmare and it literally took us 90 mins to find a place to park and fight our way across town to get to it.

Having said all of this I think we have been getting the town at it’s worse as it was Friday night and it was Thanksgiving week.  We’d like to come back at a quieter time to see if it felt as intimidating and frankly uncomfortable.  A lot of homeless people and beggars and people out to make a quick buck.  It’s the bane of all tourist places I suppose.

 

We did do the rounds though – visited the French market, had Beignets and did Bourbon street (albeit briefly).  One last criticism – being from Austin and listening to excellent live music every day meant that the Bourbon street banging and crashing sounded amateurish…anyway. One of our family guilty pleasures is NCIS and Carol and I watch the New Orleans version of it so it was interesting to hit the sites from the TV show.

 

We visited the bar that is owned by the lead character in the show, Dwayne Pride, and it is always interesting when you see TV sets.  The bar looks the same on the outside but obviously it’s a sound stage for the show so is completely different on the inside.  The same with the main office location.  It’s a realtors car park but they use it for the base in the show.  Nice to see but I was glad when we paid the car park fee and got on the road.

Our last night on the road was at Lake Charles on the border between Louisiana and Texas.  The journey was interesting as there was a thick fog all the way and it was dark so there were no travel highlights!

Checking into our hotel was interesting as we did it all on the Hilton app.  We checked in then used my phone to open the room.  So no conversation with anyone at the hotel! We’re going to see if we can check out without a single human interaction…it’s an experiment we’re not anti social ;-).

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Roadtrip #3 – Day Six – Back on the Road Orlando – Orange Beach

 

Longest day for travel today with over 400 miles covered in a day,  Not a lot of major highlights but it was Thanksgiving,  Started out the day relatively early after a short break at the beginning to do a little souvenir shopping.

Carol drove for first stint as usual and we stopped to pick ups breakfast at an Orange Visitors center (nothing to do with sectarianism ;-)) and picked up some nice fresh oranges and saw a baby gator!

We snacked along the way and waited for our final destination to eat our Thanksgiving Dinner.

We were staying at a Hampton Inn in Orange Beach.  We paid extra to have a beach facing room and it was worth it for the excellent views and the lovely sunrise in the morning.

We popped into  Bubba’s in Orange Beach for our dinner which was really nice food then rested with a beer in the hotel room.  It was not lost on us that we were eating in a place called Bubba’s in the South.  It was really nice actually although I would have liked draft beer.

It was a travel day…so that’s all we’ve got…

 

Roadtrip #3 – Day Five – Islands of Adventure

Ben is the Author today.

Day Five – Islands of Adventure

At the start of the day we found an all you can eat breakfast near the hotel and from there made our way back to Universal after eating our first bit of fuel for the day.

As we entered Universals Islands of Adventure we soon made our way round to Marvel Superhero Island to start. While there we went into a comic bookshop and got our pictures taken with the Green Goblin and Doctor Doom.

Soon after this we went to the Jurrassic park section of the park. There was only one ride there for adults which was the River Adventure. Shortly after this we got lunch in the discovery center made to look like the main building from the Jurrassic Park movies.  We even hatched a dinosaur egg.

This lunch stop was much to dad’s dismay as we soon found a kebab place in another area of the park!

From here we headed over to Hogsmead, where we explored all of our favourite sites from the books and movies.

In the same area we could see Hogwarts castle and went on the ride just below it, which was one of the best rides in the entire park.

Afterwards we went through the lost continent section of the park where we stopped and went into a special effects presentation called “Posideons Fury”.  We passed through the Doctor Seuss area of the park which we did not stay in very long as we were making our way over to the Hulk Rollercoaster (only Dad and Sophie went on) and for some pretzels.

Finally we went back to Hogmead and admired the Hogwarts Christmas lightshow and onto the last ride of the day  –  the flight of the hippogriff.

Finally we topped of the night with some Butterbeer for me, Sophie and Mum, and Dad with Dragonscale beer in the Hogshead.

Back to the hotel after that with 25k steps for the day and some very sore legs.

 

 

Roadtrip #3 – Day Four – Universal Studios

First day at Universal Studios.

Sophie is the Author today.

Day 4

Yet another early start at 7am we quickly hopped out of bed and got ready for a new day.

We decided against using the shuttle  to the park so we grabbed an Uber and finally got to Universal studios as soon as we got in the park we all realized we hadn’t had breakfast.   After looking around for a while to find somewhere we ended up just getting some Starbucks we finally got in the park and very quickly we saw many things we recognized like SpongeBob characters and the Back to the Future car.

After we mapped out a route we made our way around starting with saving ET’s home planet and the moving on to the Simpsons area where we rode through Krustyland and had a drink at Moe’s tavern.

After that we made it to #12 Grimauld place after we took a few pictures and seeing Kreacher in the window we went through the wall and into Diagon alley right away we saw a dragon and Weasleys Wizard Wheezes.

We thought we would look around first before getting

anything but that plan quickly changed when we found butterbeer ice cream so after we ate that we decided to go to Olivanders we looked around but decided to wait to get a wand.

Once we looked around the rest of the area we decided to look in the other areas too, we went to the other end of the park so we could work our way back so first dad and I went on the Rip Ride Rockit Roller coaster but Dad didn’t have the best experience with it because the belt was pushed too tight and he couldn’t breathe the whole time after that “near death experience” we went on the Fast and the Furious and the Return of the Mummy ride.

After all of that we finally made our way back to Diagon alley as we finished off the day by going through the Gringotts ride but it was already a 70 minute wait then when we finally go to the front of the line it broke down and we had to wait another half an hour but in the end it was really fun we finally got back to the hotel and decided to just grab some pizza across the street and bring it back to the room.

Editor note: all tuckered out after nearly 12 hours in the park!  Ate and slept!