Month: February 2016

Today I’m sharing a recap of the second half our our Pacific Coast Highway road trip (you can find my recap for the first part of our trip in Northern California here). I think this was my favorite part of the trip, mostly because we were more relaxed and unplugged by this point. It always takes a few days to fully disconnect and for that vacation feeling to sink in!

Cambria 

Cambria is a small, adorable, sleepy town right off PCH in the central coast. We stopped there during our first PCH road trip back in 2011, and we were so enchanted by it that we wanted to spend a bit more time there. On our first trip we stayed at Moonstone Landing – it’s right on the beach and has fireplaces in the rooms, really lovely. It wasn’t available this time, so we stayed in a really charming Airbnb rental.

We watched the sunset and enjoyed some wine and popcorn at a really cool place called Centrally Grown – it’s a cross between a bar/restaurant/market with lots of different indoor and outdoor spaces, and everything is grown by them or locally sourced. Check out their website, I love their core values and philosophy.

My favorite experience during our stay here was discovering Linn’s Fruit Bin, where I discovered the yummiest pies on the planet. Seriously. It’s so amazing I’m considering spending an inordinate amount of money to ship some here to DC…

We didn’t actually get any pictures in Cambria itself, but there’s a spot just north of Cambria where you can see a ton of elephant seals on the beach. It smells so bad there, but it’s so cool to see them all just hanging out. I mean seriously – they’re living the life.

Paso Robles

We left Cambria pretty early in the day because we were so anxious to spend time in Paso Robles. We were so excited for this part of the trip – we’d never been before, and a lot of our favorite California wines come from the area.

Our first stop was Justin Winery – we drank Justin’s Isosceles Cab the night we got engaged, so we really wanted to check it out. We were a bit ambitious in arriving at 10:30 in the morning right when they opened. The tasting room was closed, so we asked a guy who seemed to work there what was going on. He asked if we were here for the event at the Chateau – so we said yes, because who doesn’t want to go to an event at a Chateau? It turned out to be their holiday open house at this incredible mansion at the top of the hill where the owner used to live. Even though we crashed it, they let us in and we spent a few hours enjoying all of their wines and the cheese/appetizers/desserts they had available.

After Justin, we went to Daou Vineyards, which makes another of our favorite Cabs. The views from Daou were incredibly gorgeous, and we had a great time hanging out on some Adirondack chairs enjoying the scenery.

If you ever find yourself in Paso Robles, Spearhead Coffee was a really fun coffee house that we loved visiting, and we had an absolutely incredible dinner at Il Cortile Ristorante.

Santa Barbara 

The picture above is my favorite photo we took on our trip. While it’s actually serving as a warning not to go any further on that part of the Carpinteria State Beach, it’s also a really obvious reminder to STOP and enjoy the beauty around you!

After Paso Robles, we drove down to Santa Barbara to spend the last 3 days of our road trip. There is so much we love about Santa Barbara, but here are some of the highlights:

• Going for a really long and beautiful hike in Carpinteria, where we were the only ones on the beach and in the trails above the beach, and then rewarding ourselves with cupcakes from Crushcakes
• A lot of really great places to eat and drink, including: Silvergreens (delicious and fresh salads, soups, and sammies – we went back multiple times), Olio Pizzeria, Bouchon, Les Marchands (a really cool wine bar started by Brian from the documentary Somm – we saw him there!), and McConnell’s Ice Cream
• Binge-watching Aziz Ansari’s Master of None on Netflix after binge-eating pizza and ice cream
• Walking down to the pier and watching dogs play on the beach and pelicans fly overhead
• Visiting the Santa Barbara Mission – it has such a beautiful church and grounds