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.