Ryan Brothers Coffee, Lemon Grove + the Giant Lemon and the Lips rock

I didn't realize that Ryan Bros Coffee had set up shop here in this historic Streamline Moderne corner shop in downtown Lemon Grove...

Thankfully replacing Charbucks (which moved down the street as a drive-thru)...

George Izay Park

Just oooone more thing...

before heading to the hotel, we had to see THIS...

Day 1 - LA Road Trip 2016: The Little Tree Church, Tustin

Normally when we do roadtrips, we make our usual stop at the Starbucks in Tustin (Bert has to have his macchiato from there) as well as Cream Pan and THH Sandwiches.

This time, we skipped out on Cream Pan but instead, went north one block of Cream Pan at this strip mall, Jamestown Village...

The Oregon Border

After the fun tackiness that was the Trees of Mystery...

we drove onwards to Oregon...

passing through the tree lined highway...

Trees of Mystery

Now this was a spot we could not pass up...


When you see a ginormous Paul Bunyon and an, uh anatomically correct blue ox...

you just have to go see the Trees of Mystery...

Tour Thru Tree, Klamath

The third and last tourist trap drive through tree was a few miles north of Trinidad...

Up in Klamath, eh.

They called it the "Tour Thru Tree", named to avoid legal problems with the other "Drive Thru" trees. In any case, we were going to make it three for three...

World's Tallest? The McKinleyville Totem Pole

You saw a glimpse of this in my previous post...

It's not often that you see a super tall totem pole in the parking lot of a Safeway, eh...

But that is precisely why we were here...

Nitt Witt Ridge

Cambria is one of those towns that we normally drive past and never stop. It being an Artist'scolony doesn't seem too exciting to me.

Not that I am uncultured or anything, but it didn't have anything to entice us enough to stop...until I read about this crazy house in my "Weird California" book...

Cliff House, the Camera Obscura and Seal Rocks

The rain was really pouring now as we made our way out of the Inner Sunset all the way to the coast's edge...

This stretch of road is called the Great Highway and it straddles Ocean Beach and a few historic spots in San Francisco...

The Bomber Complex and Cheese Sandwiches

When we saw the word "Bomber" we knew we were in the right place...

As an avid seeker of all things odd, I  knew we just had to see this roadside oddity...

World's Tallest Totem Pole

Did you know that Poker Pete's supplied the pizza to the Twilight film crew when they first filmed the movie back in early Spring 2008?

Well, they did...Man, this is reallya small town...

As mentioned earlier, the town was named after John Kalama, a native born Hawaiian who set out for the Pacific Northwest for a very different life from the islands.  Before we went to our next destination, we thought we'd stop by City Hall and ask for directions...

Randy's Donuts - Inglewood

On our way up to the LACMA for Tim Burton, we made a slight detour in Inglewood...

This behemoth donut can be seen looming in the distance, right off the 405 freeway exit at West Manchester...

Giant What?

Now back to those oversized mollusk statues!

As you all know, I'm a sucker when it comes to checking out wierd roadside oddities.  A trip to Pismo Beach is not complete unless you take a gander at these bivalve beauties!

Behold! One of the giant clam sculptures of Pismo Beach. This one is on the Northbound Price Street off ramp near the 101...

Choke on this!

After having lunch at the Garlic Capital of the World, we headed south to the Artichoke Capital of the World, Castroville...

I swear artichokes are like weeds here. You can buy them dirt cheap, like 10 for $1.00. I love how you can just buy all kinds of fresh produce off the side of the road here in the Central Coast...

Day 4 - Bite This!

Yay, our Fast Trak from San Diego also works up here! Heading west on the Oakland Bay Bridge...
We had to see this particular roadside attraction...

Return to the Fish House and more!

Mondays must be trash day in Berkeley...

We couldn't pass up the opportunity to look at THIS house again...

Day 6 Highlights

After having a great breakfast at mhy Ninang's, we made our way down the PCH. This is somewhere near Big Sur...

Day 4 Highlights...

I just realized I'm starting off another post with a "bridge" photo! What's cool is that our "Fast Trak" pass that we use just for the 125 in San Diego works here as well.

After having spent a few days across the Bay, we headed over to the other side on our way to the Monterey Peninsula...

Grey Roots...no not my hair!

Our traveling companion K mentioned seeing this place that had replicas of different houses. We figured we'd stop by to look at it. We weren't going to go in or anything. Turns out that the place, Grey Roots,was already closed when we got there.

The Wayside Chapel

Hey, I'm not a religious person, but we HAD to stop here and check it out...

I remember seeing this tiny church on our drive up to Tobermory and thinking, on our way back, we MUST go there!