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…☹

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.

San Antonio Zoo, Texas

With the Mother in Law’s time in town coming to an end we decided to use the last day of my holiday to go on a little Road Trip down to San Antonio.  Stopping half way down to jump in for some lunch at iHop (we all ate lunch for less than $50 which is always nice!).

Our destination for the day was San Antonio Zoo.  I had read some reviews which were not flattering of the zoo but it’s relatively high rating on Yelp and some of the really nice stuff people wrote about it meant we wanted to see it for ourselves.  I have to say I understand peoples objections to Zoo’s but I do feel they have a place today especially for conservation purposes.  So i’ll stay away from the politics and stick to the day out and how it was for the kids.

We got there early afternoon (around 1.30pm) and it was a pleasant (if not warm) afternoon.  The first thing that struck me was the price – We were used to visiting Edinburgh Zoo (Calderpark being my first zoo experience but it’s been closed for decades) which charges around 16.50 GBP for entrance for an adult so it can be a pricey day out.  San Antonio Zoo prices are $12.00 for adults (Significantly cheaper).  It is smaller than Edinburgh but it did have a bunch of animals which were new to us.  North American and European zoo’s are going to be different but it was interesting to see the differences up close.

Anyway – We got a map as we went in and planned out what we wanted to see and the best route to do this…then ignored that completely and jumped from animal to animal and reptile house to aquarium as the fancy took us!  We were in till it closed at 6pm so it was a long day but we were kept busy and interested the whole time.

Starting out at the fabulously colored Flamingos was a great start although finding out that they are no longer native to the US was disappointing…I have been lied to by my Miami Vice titles.

Next up were the bears which they had a few of…the American Black bear was not for coming out see us but still pretty cool.  travelling round the Hippos, White Rhino and Tigers was pretty cool.  The Lions though were a highlight as they were just sitting around their cages when we arrived but after we got there they started playing about then the male lion decided that he would have a bit of a roar…it was pretty damn impressive to see!

They had some excellent injection molding machines to create your own souvenirs which were pretty nice and cheap and the kids liked the early 3D printers!  At $2 they were a pretty cheap little keepsake.

As we left for the day we stopped in at the Aquarium almost as an afterthought.  I am so glad we did.  there were some pretty amazing looking fish in there but they also hit all the kids ‘food groups’ when it came to cool things that live in the sea – Jellyfish, Sharks, Piranhas and electric eels!  All very impressive.

This was worth the visit and a good low price day out for the kids.

We finished off the day with a quick trip into San Antonio (10 mins drive) to see the Alamo (so that my mother in law could say she had been there!) and then the 1.5 hr journey back to Round Rock.  A pretty long day all in all as we arrived back about 10pm but a great day out and at a pretty low cost too!

Mount Bonnell and in and around Austin

One of our favourite places to visit for a quick day trip is Mount Bonnell.  This is the highest place in Austin and is just a very short trip from the city centre or from our house in Round Rock it is a 15 min drive.  The views are spectacular when you get up there right across to Austin and further up the river.  It’s a wee (and I mean wee) hike to get up there (about 70 steps we counted).

There is not a lot to do up there once you get up there other than take in the spectacular view but this was where General George Armstrong Custer (yep that one!) use to bring his wife for romantic picnics before he met his fate at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Well worth a visit and on a clear day (most days are clear here in Austin) you get such an impressive view of the surrounding countryside!

Afterwards we headed down to the Hula Hut for dinner which is only about a 5-10 minute drive down the hill and sits on the Lake.  It’s usually busy because of the impressive location and we did have to wait about 10 minutes for a table but they do have a nice system where you can access an app whilst you wait and see what you want and when your table is ready the app tells you it is ready and you can be seated at that point.

We were not feeling adventurous that day and all 5 of us had a burger of some description but they were all a little different.  I went with the Hawaiian and it was pretty tasty.  The place itself has an indoor and outdoor area and we sat outdoors (despite it being January) and enjoyed it.

After that we headed to downtown to get a photo with the very famous Austin mural…this is a tourist must see and we got there as a bunch of other tourists arrived…bad timing but we waited for 5 mins then got the shot we came for!

That was a quick trip though and it was such a nice day that our next stop was Barton Springs pool.  In the summer time it’s a superb place to go swimming and the temperature year round is around 63 degrees so people were in swimming even in January!

It was free to wander round (although there is a small fee in the summer time) and it really is nice.  In the summer time coming down just to watch the people jumping off the diving board is worth the admission.  

The area around the pool is worth wandering round and they have a train which goes round the park plus a small kiosk for sno-cones or light food. In the summer time very close to here they have shows in the auditorium area and they have been great when we’ve gone along.

A lot shoe horned into a shorter day for today but we really enjoyed ourselves and if you only have an afternoon to spend in Austin this is one way to spend it.

Austin’s Park, Austin, tx

My Mother in law just hit town and we were looking for some place to take her for the first day trip.  I’d never been to Austin’s Park but Carol and the kids had been before.  it’s an interesting set up!

It seemed a little pricey at $24.95 per person but when you take into account that includes all you can eat all day and access to the attractions it becomes much nicer as an option.  The 5 of us headed in around 12 and i was expecting a couple of hours then home.  It did not really work out like that.

We started with lunch which is not exactly superb quality but as a thing to eat it was fine and really just there are fuel for the day.  The unlimited buffet had tacos, pizza, salad and Pasta as well as some desert items such as custard and the interesting chocolate pizza.  Nothing offensive there if it was just standard buffet fayre.

After eating we headed out to the GoKarts which were great fun.  there are a few options with the Gokarts depending on ability and size etc.  They even have 2 person go-karts for the kids who are perhaps a little small for the main ones.  Sophie is 9 and she came on with me in the bigger Go-Karts but they had smaller Karts on another track for the smaller kids.  The rule is not bumping – this is GoKarts not bumper karts…unfortunately as the day went on the number of adults who seemed to miss this became more and more.  During the day it was great but later in the day we encountered a few idiotic yahoos who thought it was perfectly acceptable to crash at 15 mphs into a dad and kid on the track…one particular guy was very lucky he walked away quickly when we finished the gokarts as he got a mouthful from me on the track!  Worst thing was we were not dealing with teenagers but a guy older than me!!  Anyway apart from those guys who appeared late on in the day it was tremendous fun.

After Gokarts we headed to the Bumper boats which were fantastic…each boat has a control (although it’s not the most responsive!) and a gun which shoots out water.  We were pretty much the only ones on the boats at this time and the kids took great delight in soaking their grandmother and dad!

Then Sophie went onto the small rollercoaster whilst Ben and I went and sources putters for the mini golf.  the mini golf was great as each hole had slightly different obstacles and a game spinner which put other items in your way as you went round.  Nice and not just putting which kept everyone involved and excited.

All this excitement meant that we were now getting hungry again and we popped in for more food before heading to the lazer tag.  That was also great fun…we played as a team against a team of cheating 12 year olds and lost…mainly because the boys we were playing against had obviously played before and had put their coats over the sensors!!  😉

After that we were off to the batting cages.  Now you do have to pay more for this ($1 for 12 balls) but that makes sense so that people don’t just stay in there all day.  It was my first attempt at the batting cages and whilst it was on medium speed i was thinking I was Babe Ruth…then I moved to fast ball and realized I was rank rotten!

We had another go on the gokarts later in the day then bought some arcade cards for the kids and they went in and played for another hour or so…8 hours after we arrived we were headed home…exhausted but happy!

It’s not something I would do everyday but as an annual treat it was pretty good fun and the kids loved it.