The most recent vacation I took was over Spring Break. I'd never been on a "spring break trip" before and since it was my last year of schooling (unless I decide for some crazy reason to go to graduate school,) I wanted to go on a tripity trip. The last time I went to CA with sister christian, we couldn't rent a car because we were only 20 and you have to be 21 to be considered to drive but really they want you to be 25 (BUT THEY'LL LET YOU GET SHOT IN A FOREIGN LAND AT 18..America you have flaws) I was bummed about it because I researched all of these places that I wanted to visit, mainly The Big Sur. So this time we decided to start out in San Francisco and end up in Los Angeles driving down highway 1.
Going back to San Francisco after almost 2 years was weird. We spent one full day there this time and stayed near the airport, so we took the BART into town. I remember we came up out of the ground in Mission and the weather was awesome.
The next day we woke up and took the hotel shuttle to the airport and went to rent a car. That was the most expensive part of the vacation.. it was almost 600 dollars. Driving the rental car from the airport was pretty crazy. I was both excited and a bit nervous about the day we had ahead. I wanted to make it to Big Sur before dark (so that we could see it) and that meant pretty constant driving.
Our first stop was Santa Cruz for lunch. I don't have any pictures in Santa Cruz.. I was actually underwelmed by it.. it's probably cool but I feel like internet travel sites were making it out to be cooler than it was.
From there Allison began to drive. We had glimpses of the coast while I was driving pre-Santa Cruz but now we were headed for Monterey and Carmel-Down-By-the-Sea.
Carmel
So we drove and drove and hit The Big Sur..which was amazing. Pictures can't really do it justice because they don't provide 360 degrees of experience but it's still pretty amazing.
So then we got dinner pretty late at this place called Whale Watchers Cafe. Cafe was a deceiving term because it made the place sound moderately priced, which it was not. But it was a nice spot and the only place to eat that we'd seen in miles. So we stopped. I think we were both ready to die.
I really wish that I would have recorded this guy that was playing a banjo to the side of the place. He was an older man that looked like he had stories to tell and he had a good singing voice! The waiter said that celebrities came into the place all the time. Most recently he had Sam from True Blood and Caezar..The Dog Whisperer. YES I KNOW. KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON PEOPLE.
I started driving after we ate and we stopped in San Luis Obispo for the night (we had a hotel booked there because it was roughly in between SF and LA.) That night I read through some book about the coast that I got from the airport and saw that Santa Barbara, California was worth checking out. On the way I remember seeing Pismo? Beach which looked pretty neat. So the next day we didn't go back on the highway 1 for very long and we headed through valley looking areas. This is when I started feeling like I was getting allergies (for the people who have allergies crowd.) We stopped into Santa Barbara for lunch, the book that we had mentioned the Sojourner Cafe so we went there. It was pretty good and our waiter was really funny and told us to check out a specific beach and gave us tips about where to go in LA.
I found the street he was talking about but at first we reached the more touristy beach. While I was waiting for Allison in the bathroom (in this bathhouse-- see below) a woman came up to me and said "I'm bleeding and I haven't bled for 30 years. I'm really scared." To which I kind of half mumbled.."oh man, I'm sorry..whhhat...ALLISON ARE YOU ALMOST DONEEE"
We walked on the beach there for a pretty long time and it was crazy beautiful.
here is a very short video
So we got back into the car and decided to follow the street down farther and we got to a hill looking area that had steps. When we went down the steps..it was amazing!
After that we both kind of wanted to stay in Santa Barbara but we had a hotel booked in LA. So we drove to LA..accidently ordered a ridiculous amount sushi (it was REALLY good but whoa) and spent the first night in L.A. When I woke up the next morning I had a pretty bad cold. We went to Venice Beach around 10am and walked around..it was really beautiful..and there were already some pretty crazy looking people out walking around.
from there we went to Santa Monica which was super clean..(lots of yoga places.) We got some lunch at Urth Caffe which was pretty good and it had a busy atmosphere. Then we went to the Santa Monica boardwalk swung on some swings and rode a roller coaster.
Also Whilst in LA we went to Silverlake, took a Warner Bros tour and saw the Hollywood sign.
During the tour we saw a lot of sets that had been used in multiple tv shows and movies. The tour guide was really funny and knew tons of shit about movies. We got to see where Paul Newman filmed Cool Hand Luke..and some other crap. Some people on the tour were going APE SHIT for the Gilmore Girls set.
The last night we ate in Santa Monica. and that was that.
The next day we dropped the car off near the airport and started our journery to Denver. I sat in the aisle and Allison sat next to this woman who told her she should move out of our parents house ASAP and that Jennifer Aniston had fat thighs in person. She also said Sean Penn was a midget..among other things.
When we arrived in Denver it was snowing and the airport was freezing..and I was wearing shorts and and my college t-shirt. Our flight was delayed by over an hour and once we got on we had to be de-iced. The man that sat next to me started talking to me about Towson and he was really really cool. It took about another hour for our plan to be de-iced. (The flight wasn't supposed to get in until 12am ON TIME...) There was something really strange about being on the plane in the dark we all kept making jokes about whether or not we had really taken off...and how the flight attendent sounded like a robot. It took over 3 hours to get to Baltimore and we talked to the guy next to us the entire time. He had gone to the same college as us and then had lived in LA for 3 years after college and now had a daughter in Catonsville. He was super impressed with the fact that we did the road trip and that was pretty cool cuz then I was like...WAIT A SECOND I AM AWESOME.
We got to BWI a bit past 2 am. waved good bye to our seatmate at baggage and were picked up by the parents at 3am. Needless to say I was in a weird dream like state for the next (I'm still in a dream like state) 24 hours.
Coming home and going back to school was a hard adjustment... but I had A LOT of work to do.
Since then I've graduated...
WHENS MY NEXT VACA!???????????????
No comments:
Post a Comment