Maui Day 1 - McD's for lunch, plus quick stops at Walmart & Safeway for local stuff

Sadly, because the Geste Shrimp Truck was closed on Monday...

we ended up going here...

Maui Day 1 - First stop, Costco

Last week we went on a much needed vacation...

We hadn't been to the airport since our Portland trip last year and I don't remember the new sitting areas complete with outlets in the tables (nice!);

This year, we would be off to Maui for about a week...

Portland Day 4 - ToV Coffee House

I didn't have coffee earlier that morning when we did the aerial tram. Hospital coffee isn't my thing, ha ha.

I wanted us to try this place I read about prior to our trip...

Portland Day 4 - Rose & VL Deli

Fresh from our donut haul from Doe Donuts,

we ventured further eastward on Powell Blvd...

Summer Road Trip - En route to Carpinteria

Finally...the start of our Carpinteria posts...

(strip mall with Starbucks and El Toro taco shop at the Red Hill Exit, Tustin)

which happened in late June but am just posting about now...

San Pedro Road Trip - Breakfast @ Carl's + Bad Coffee, Costa Mesa

It's time to catch up on posts.  I'm juggling the Spring Break road trip, Carpinteria (I have yet to start it), our visit to the Broad, and now our mini trip to San Pedro to see a specific art exhibit.

Of course, our M.O. is the meandering route, with lots of stops in between...

Starting off the morning with some iPod roulette...

 and bypassing all of the shitty traffic on the 405 by taking the 73 toll road...

Spring Break Trip 2017 - Day 4 Highlights

Back in the Sunset District again...

The street car lines, telephone poles and vibrantly painted homes make us feel at home...

Heading down to SF from Crescent City...

Breakfast was just fruit plus the coffee we got at Dutch Bros in Crescent City. I really wanted us to have breakfast at the Historic Hiouchi Cafe a bit northeast of Crescent City, but it would have taken long to drive up, have breakfast and then double back down. We had a lot of ground to cover which is why we left super early.

San Francisco was our next city on the agenda coming down from Crescent City..

On our way down, we saw some interesting sights plus places we'd been to recently, like the Tour Thru Tree in Klamath...

Spring Break Road Trip 2016 - Day 1 Highlights

Although Spring Break began after the 18th, we didn't leave for our trip until the day after Easter...
at the ungodly hour of 3 am!

Patrick's of Bodega Bay

Westward about five miles was the town of Bodega Bay...

This was where Hitchcock filmed the scene where Tippy Hedren's character gets attacked by a seagull and she goes into The Tides restaurant (which is still there but looks completely different than it did decades ago in the movie)...It is a small town by the water.

TC's wish list included a candy store (it usually does whenever we travel) and Bodega Bay was no exception..

Potter Schoolhouse, "The Birds" filming location

After our awesome lunch from the Marshall Store & Oyster Bar, we headed back out onto the scenic Hwy 1...

where more cows were seen grazing happily.

We were on our way to a small town in Sonoma County...

The Swiss Restaurant & Bar

After dropping off our luggage and personal  effects at our hotel, we headed out to dinner..

and since this was Santa Maria, land of tri-tip bbq, we headed to a local steakhouse...

Pismo Beach Pier & Farmer's Market

Back to Pismo we were...

next to The Scoop where TC enjoyed a cone several years ago...

Passing through Marin County...

With coffee from Well Grounded in our system, we set the gps for our next stop which was a one and a half hour drive to the other side of bay. On the map, El Cerrito and Point Reyes looks pretty close by but in reality, it was a LONG ASS DRIVE! Our first task was getting through this...getting on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge...

which we drove on back in Summer 2011 to check out the Marine Mammal Center (Free!)...

Luckily, we have a transponder (since we use the 125) and guess what people, it works for all bridges in California. So we passed up all of these poor bastards and zipped through more easily than most, heh heh...

Heading back home and Happy 4th!

Day 10 and we were heading back to San Diego...

leaving the Central Coast at 7 am...

See those ridges on the side of the road?

Taking the L to Taraval: First Stop - Kingdom of Dumpling

Near our hotel was the L-Taraval Streetcar (which I erroneously referred as a 'trolley' in a previous post, please don't hurt me native SF readers). It costs $2 per adult, and .75 for those under 18. This is the very end of the line at 46th and Wawona Street.

Interestingly, the streetcar's money machine wasn't working that day. Correction, it worked for me, so I did pay $2 but Bert, TC and all the other customers wishing to pay cash got to ride for free.

Nearly there...

Slowly but surely we were making progress...

as we headed up the 101 to our eventual destination of good ole SF...

Grinds Vines and Automobilia Cafe plus BookSmart

Now we were heading north on the 101...

As mentioned in the previous post, it was pretty $#%@ hot...

so I thought a stop at the next town would be nice so we could get some cold drinks...

Mamy's Fruit Stand, Hollister

Although we hadn't hit Gilroy yet, we saw many trucks filled with Gilroy's biggest export...

The papery garlic skins would sometimes flutter upwards from the truck.

We weren't sure what the debris was until we got closer and we could really see what was in those truck beds...

More pitstops - Gorman & Kettleman City

While driving through the LA where we were met with craptastic traffic, I found amusement with this truck...

Heh heh, he said "nuts"....

We had quite a ways to go and unlike TC who was asleep for the majority of the drive, Bert and I took turns driving...

and listening to our various cd's and tinkering with the radio stations as we headed up our great Golden State...