Sea Cliff + coastal overlook in Carpinteria

It's the return of the Carpinteria road trip posts...We haven't even gotten to that point yet, but bear with me as I painfully eke out these posts...

After our short stop at Beacon Coffee Co. in Ventura,

As much as we enjoyed our trip to Ventura the previous year, we needed to move on....

Pea Soup Andersen's, Santa Nella

As we headed south,

we made sure to make a stop here...

Spring Break Road Trip 2017 - Day 8: Heading back to San Diego

Bright and early,

our time was short in Sacramento but it was a nice capstone to our Spring Break road trip...

Spring Break Trip 2017 - Day 8 Highlights

We meant to leave at 6 but left an hour later instead.

It turned out not to matter too much since we would hit crappy traffic later in LA...

Summer Road Trip 2015 Day 10 - The Drive back, Blackwell's Corner & Porto's

This was it, our last day of our epic 10 day road trip...

We left Paso Robles super early to beat traffic on the way back home.

This was July 4th after all and we wanted to make it for early dinner at my parents...

Robitaille's Fine Candies + return to Carpinteria State Beach

Earlier we were curious about Robitaille's Fine Candies...

Sadly, it was closed. Several young boys on skateboards were also bummed out. We ended up coming a little later after having had pastries across the street at Reynaldo's Bakery.

Every town has to have a candy shop and Carpinteria was no exception...

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...

El Presidio de Santa Barbara State Historic Park + a bit of Filipino American history at the Chapel

Across the street from Handlebar Coffee Roasters and Three Pickles Deli is a notable historic landmark..

known as El Presidio de Santa Barbara.

This is separate from the Mission and located in what used to be the old Chinatown of Santa Barbara...

Nikka Japanese Market

Since we were still in Goleta...

TC wanted to come back to the Japanese market we saw next to Kyle's Kitchen a few nights ago...

Time to load up on some Japanese snack, eh...

Shine Drive Thru Tree

Trees, trees. and more trees...

Especially this particular tree that you could drive your car through....

Beautiful views + the Pgymy Forest @ Van Damme State Park -

Meanwhile, at another rest stop up the coast...

we added more miles to our teenaged car as we made our way up...

Point Arena Lighthouse

Further up the coast was our next stop on our summer road trip...

It would be another lighthouse...

But what made this particular lighthouse stand out above the rest was that...

Spring Break Road Trip 2016 - Day 4 Highlights

Taskmaster that I am, we were out of the hotel by 7am...

So we could snag a prime parking spot...

Spring Break Road Trip 2016 - Day 3 Highlights

Morning coffee was in order...

A ten minute walk encompassing the five blocks from our hotel to downtown was all it took...

Spring Break Road Trip 2016 - Day 2 Highlights

Even though I was so tired, I still woke up super early!  We had things to do, places to visit. Chop! Chop!

(the scene at our super cute French inspired hotel's cafe counter)

After enjoying a few mini crepes at the hotel, we were ready to get going...

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!

Farmer's Market + Surf Market, Gualala

I keep switching back and forth from our Summer 2014 trip to our 2015; this one is from 2015. Our next destination north from having breakfast at the Sea Ranch was a small town called Gualala.

If you blink while driving through, you might miss it.

It's a pretty small town, but we made sure to stop by. Lucky for us, it was also the same day as their Farmer's Market...

Two Fish Baking Company

Prior to this trip, I'd never heard of The Sea Ranch before...it's a ten mile stretch of private homes on the Sonoma Coast. The houses are private set amongst natural, unspoiled land. My former student who got married a few years ago had her "mini-moon" here. She and her husband rented an apartment here to commune with nature...

But I digress...The Sea Ranch was not only known for its unspoiled landscape but also for a baking company at this business center...

known for their sticky rolls...

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...