California Adventure Day 2: LA to Pismo Beach

Good Morning!

One of the rules we set for the trip was we would sleep until we woke up. Of course, I woke up at 6am that first morning! Luckily I brought 2 books, so I read for a little while before Bean woke up.
We decided it would be easiest to order room service, so I had the healthiest breakfast of the entire trip: steel cut oatmeal with berries and raisins. Bean had some delicious hash browns but the oatmeal filled me up. Especially since that Dodger Dog was not friendly to me overnight.


We stopped at a bank so Bean could deposit his birthday money and the teller was from Rockwall! Then we went to Target to get my birthday gift: a new camera! It's the same kind I had before, but it's more powerful and it's not red. The guy was helpful and suggested it, and when he went to ring it up, it was $50 cheaper than we were expecting!! We were able to get an extra memory card and a case for it for less than the camera would have cost. We also picked up some snacks and drinks for the road. By this time, I was SO ready to be out on the open road.



Bean drove that day. We were finally on our way! This trip was on his Bucket List. He wanted to drive from Washington down to south California, but neither of us could take off that much time. We had the top down, windows down, and my scarf was blowing in the wind. We had Texas Country on the radio, and we just enjoyed the view.

I liked the little seaside towns and the huge mountains right by the road. We went through Oxnard and Bean freaked me out by taking some detour. Must stick to the plan! Stay on Highway 1! But I'm glad he did because we saw lots of strawberry fields and other crops, including the Driscoll's farm. Turns out, he took the scenic route. Otherwise, we would have just been on the highway.

I had a few birthday cards burning a hole in my purse, so we looked for a post office. TomTom told us where one was, but we drove around and around and never saw it.
That's because it was in the middle of a shopping center! With a tiny sign! At least the cards were in the mail 1-2 days before the recipients' birthdays. We knew we wanted to eat at In and Out Burger while we were there, so we found one for lunch. Here's a closeup:My main impression of the burger was it was full of veggies. It was very crunchy, not much meat, and I didn't taste the thousand island dressing. I like how they wrap the burgers though, it makes them easier to hold and make sure you don't miss a bite of veggies or a drop of dressing. The fries were phenomenal. While we were waiting, I watched an employee methodically chopping up fresh potatoes that went straight into the fryer. They were the perfect texture and not too salty. I wish I could have some every day!

There's Bean digging into his cheeseburger. We hopped back into the car and when we reached Ventura, we decided to stop off at the Ventura Pier.



It's one of the longest piers. Compared to what, I don't know. There were homeless people fishing off the pier, and there were stations for cleaning fish. I thought it was a good way for someone down on their luck to get food- just sit out there and fish. Then they could build a fire on the beach and cook their dinner!

We hit the road again, and enjoyed the music, the views, and the singing along.

Then we came upon this tunnel. I screamed, "Tunnel!!" and we proceeded to scream our way through it. Luckily it wasn't that long.

I wrestled with my scarf most of the time. I wanted it to be glamourous or cute. I couldn't get it to look either and also keep my flowing locks under wraps. I bought it to look cute, but I wore it to keep from having to spend an hour brushing out my tangled hair every day. It worked!

It also worked to help prevent the odd sunburn on half of my neck from getting any worse. Bean burned the top of his head. I figured he could try to get the top of his head to match the tan on his neck and face, but it just got burnt instead. By the way, I wore shorts and a t-shirt and the weather was around 65, so I was freezing! I added a sweater and used a beach towel as a blanket. Bean was comfortable.

We got into Pismo Beach around 5pm and spotted this hotel:

We stopped in and asked if they had any rooms available. She offered us a king room for $90, or a queen room for $80. We told her the queen room would be fine since we'd only be in town for one night. She said she could give us the king room with a AAA discount for the same price as the queen room. We thanked her and asked for a dinner recommendation. She said if we liked seafood, the Cracked Crab had a bucket meal that was fun. So we walked down the block and had the bucket meal.
We had to wear bibs:

They had a carafe of chardonnay which she said was about 4 glasses of wine...it was more like 2.5 for me! We had shrimp, two kinds of crab, along with potatoes and corn. Bean thought it could be spicier, and here's a shocker: so did I! I usually like bland food but I thought it needed some more seasoning. It was a fun meal and we had a great waitress. We walked around the streets and most of the shops were closed, so we went into the bar next door to the hotel that promised karaoke at 9pm. We sat at the bar and struck up a conversation with some guy who works in the area. We learned about his family, including his adopted step granddaughter, where he lived, his work, his travels, and saw pictures of his kids.

The karaoke started around 10pm and there were a couple of interesting singers, but we were still so tired so we went back to the room and went to sleep.

The hotel had an old-fashioned elevator, and we agreed that the room felt like we were staying at someone's house. It wasn't the nicest ever, but we had such a great experience in Pismo Beach that we fantasized about buying a vacation home there and renting it out. It really got us started on the relaxed vibe for the rest of the trip.

This hotel was #3 on our list, and the dinner was #2.

Yes, on the last few days of the trip we spent our time talking about which hotel was our favorite and which meal was our favorite.