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…☹

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.