Hello Everybody!
It has been another great week of beautiful scenery, but most recently with some time well spent with good friends in between.
We Left Kanab and bombed it 500 miles across I-15 to Los Angeles, driving through Las Vegas in the process. It was eight more hours of desert before we finally reached the coast. Southern California is a weird place because without a ton of man-made it has no business being there. A lot of water is diverted from other parts of the country so that L.A. can drink it and keep their lawns green. The landscape coming in is literally desert leading up to 9,000 foot mountains, on the other side of which is land leading into the Pacific ocean. It's pretty dramatic, and the fact that in the winter one can go to the beach and ski in the same day (traffic permitting, of course) is ridiculous. The traffic is terrible, however, but that is a well known fact and needs no further explanation here.
We stayed with Shauna's very good friend from high school, Laudan. Unfortunately Laudan's boyfriend and roommate Grant was away for the weekend covering Comic-Con in San Diego. Coincidentally they will be in Portland at the same time as us so we'll get to know him a bit better then. Anyway, Laudan and Grant live on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, smack dab in the middle of the city. Laudan lives only three plus miles from her job at Paramount Studios, and she took us on a VIP tour as soon as we got in. It was fun and interesting to actually do the tour after seeing people do it on TV all the time. We walked down the recreated NYC streets, ducked into several studios (including those used for Community and Glee), and parked in "the tank". The tank is usually a parking lot sunk five feet or so below all the other lots. It's painted light blue and on one side is a huge screen with a blue sky painted on it. This is where they film ocean scenes such as the one from The Truman Show where he breaks out of the island. Apparently it takes two days to fill. We didn't see anyone famous as the summer is kind of a dead time in Hollywood.
The next day was a total touristy one. We met up with Shauna's other good friend from high school, Michelle, and hiked up to the top of Runyon Canyon. Michelle, who Pat knows well from NYC, just moved out to LA with her boyfriend Casey, and it was great to have them as another comfort in La-La Land. Michelle picked us up and we drove past some unbelievable homes leading up to the entrance of the trail. At the entrance we met up with Pat's good friend from high school, Jesse, and continued to the top. Jesse's story: Moved out to L.A. to pursue an acting/writing career after doing it in NYC for a while. He has appeared in a lot of successful commercials that every once in a while surprise us in the most random places. You could be in your apartment or visiting friends anywhere in the country and Jesse's face comes on the tube. It's a weird experience. Anyway, we did Runyon partly to get some exercise and partly (mostly for Shauna) to spot a celebrity. As with Paramount we didn't see anyone, but the hike was worthwhile and you can see the whole city (what's not distorted from the smog). After the hike we left our friends and got in the car for a driving tour of the city. We drove through some of the amazing neighborhoods of Beverly Hills (at one point passing some mob-looking guy and his son jogging while two tinted-out white Escalades drove slowly next to them) and down Rodeo Drive. We did a loop of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard and ended up in Hollywood and got the most amazing car wash ever. We suppose the car wash makes sense since everyone drives.
That night we went out for a great dinner with Laudan, her two friends, Michelle, Casey and his buddy from NYC who was in to MC a yoga festival of some sort. Pretty cool gig; he just flies around the country and world MC'ing. Anyway, we did dinner and proceeded to go out and get sauced. Jesse and Pat's little sister's best friend Shannon (also from Saratoga and we love her; works for Dustin Hoffman's family) met up as well. There was a couple of photo booth sessions involved and was overall a swell time.
The following day was a much needed beach day in Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Once we made our way through the horrific traffic and managed to park, the beach was great. The weather was perfect and the water was warm enough. We met up with yet another high school friend as well. Shauna's friend Matt moved to Venice years ago and never looked back, and he showed us around the area. After several hours of beach time we moved to a bar on the beach where Matt knew the bartender. We got two for one drinks and ordered a fantastic amount of nachos. After a few rounds we made our way back to relax and hit up Yogurtland (via Michelle and Casey's amazing apartment). The night was a welcome break from the previous action-packed 36 hours.
The next day was Sunday and we lounged around watching TV and Shauna got workout tips from Laudan. After Shauna was sufficiently worn out we showered up and took off up the 1 towards San Francisco. Going 115 miles took us over three hours. Most of that time was sitting in traffic from Santa Monica to Malibu, just six miles north. It was a Sunday so we shouldn't have been surprised. We weren't in any kind of rush so we stayed sane, but we think the traffic would probably drive us crazy if we lived there. Malibu is beautiful, however. Pepperdine University might be the best place in the country to go to college. Literally perched on a hill overlooking the Pacific, you have to enter the campus from Route 1. It's incredibly beautiful. Leaving Malibu and the traffic behind, we continued up the highway passing beach after beach along the way. We eventually made it to Santa Barbara and stopped for dinner. The downtown reminded us a bit of Saratoga but a lot newer and with unaffordable homes surrounding it. Maybe it's more like Westchester then, but either way it's gorgeous. This will be a recurring theme as we describe the cities along the 1. Santa Barbara is beautiful and looks like a great place to live. If you can afford it then it's definitely a place to check out. We camped at El Capitan State Beach about ten miles north of the city. The campsites sit in a wooded area but are only steps away from a fantastic and relatively empty beach. The beaches get more and more beautiful and less and less crowded as you go north, but the water and air temperatures get much colder at the same time. For beaches and swimming then, the area around Santa Barbara is a good compromise.
Our second day we drove the 1 up to San Luis Obispo, probably our favorite spot on the coast between L.A. and San Fran. The city has a great vibe. If Santa Barbara is Westchester, the San Luis Obispo is Saratoga. It's not huge, but the downtown was big enough to have at least one of everything. The pretty houses streaming organically from the main drag throughout the area look perfect. It felt less uppity than Santa Barbara while still having more than enough class. It's a little out of the way being about 250 miles from both L.A. and San Fran, but that may also be a plus for some people. From here we continued north to the tiny but beautiful town of Cambria. This is like a small Vermont town, with one main drag selling antiques and ice cream, but also along an amazing stretch of beach in California. We had lunch here before getting to our campsite a few miles north at San Simeon State Beach. After setting up camp we tried to sun ourselves but it was just too damn cold. The weather didn't get much above 60 degrees and doesn't again until north of San Fran. California is not all perfect weather, depending on who you ask. The 75 and sunny everyday weather is confined to a tiny area around L.A. and San Diego. The coast north of here is just cold (as is the water), and over the mountains next to the coast it gets uncomfortably hot and dry. You also have the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the western part of the state, but we'll get to that in our next blog. Anyway, we couldn't stay on the beach and so made our way to Hearst Castle. The estate was built by William Randolph Hearst, who along with Joseph Pulitzer were the kingpins of Yellow Journalism. Basically they started what has now become the garbage news like The NY Post or OK Magazine. As you could guess Hearst became extremely rich and built one of the most extravagant Mediterranean-style mansions in the country. It's now in the hands of the state and is a big tourist attraction along the coast. We didn't pay to go in, but as the pictures show it looks beautiful from afar, and he didn't have a bad view. We also walked the beach opposite the castle and saw an amazing array of marine life. Dolphins, seals, elephant seals, otters, and a plethora of fishing birds among them. In fact, the whole coast from L.A. to north of San Fran is one of the best sections on earth to see such a diverse amount of marine life.
The next day we continued up the 1 and lunched in Big Sur, a fantastic little town. After that we hit Carmel and the famous 17 mile drive, which includes Pebble Beach, possibly America's most recognizable golf course. After that we hit Monterey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, possibly America's best known aquarium. The whole area is famous, but we're sure the real estate prices reflect this fact. We made it to our campgrounds at up to Sunset State Beach, about half way up Monterey Bay. This was probably our favorite campground, if only because of all the beautiful fruit and vegetable farms in the area. California is among so many other things "America's Salad Bowl", and this area made us realize why. Field upon field grew everything from baby greens to strawberries. Driving through the lettuce fields was humbling (to see the amount of work that goes into producing lettuce).
The next day we continued north to Santa Cruz, yet another town that reminded us of a newer New York town. Here you also have one of the best surf breaks in California. Again the water is uncomfortably cold but as long as you can deal with that Santa Cruz is a sweet place. We continued to pass beautiful beach after beautiful beach until we stopped in Half Moon Bay, yet another gorgeous town along the 1. It's also only thirty-five miles south of San Fran. Here we got great chowder at Sam's Chowder House and ate next to the NFL player Tyson Alualu, a defensive tackle for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was just too big not to notice, and after a little Google search of Polynesian NFL players we found him.
We made our way to San Francisco, and we should just as well start talking about Healdsburg, our last destination on this blog. We spent five full days in San Fran, but neither of us remember much of it, except that it was a lot of fun. The first night we do remember well, and that was spent with one of Pat's favorite cousins, Honora, and her husband Alex. Honora is eight plus months pregnant and they invited us over to see their place and catch up. It was a great night and so insane to see her belly. Congrats guys! We will see you both soon. Other than that, two of Pat's best friends live out there, one being Tim and the other Dicky. There was a perfect storm brewing this particular weekend, and we were lucky to survive it. One part of the storm was simply that we were coming out to visit, but more of it had to do with the fact that Dicky was leaving after three years to move back east. No matter what, Pat, Tim, and Dicky are a bad combination and a lot of silliness took place. We'll let the pictures (what's appropriate to post) do the talking. There are just too many stories we can't describe here. Saying that, Tim and his roommate Sarah were the best hosts we could have asked for and we thank them immensely. Shauna was jealous of their apartment and has now started a list of what we absolutely must have in our next place. The group of people Tim and Dicky introduced us to were all amazing. It was great catching up with our friend Michelle as well. They all have (and Dicky had) a great life out there and San Fran is in general one of our favorite places in the country. There should not need to be an explanation but San Fran is a must see when experiencing America. It's a top five (higher for us) city of America, if not the world.
After thankfully surviving San Fran, we made our way north to Healdsburg, the wine capital of nothern Sonoma. As wine country goes, Sonoma is laid back compared to Napa. Both have their perks, but Pat wanted to show Shauna Healdsburg first. We started at Seghesio first, where Pat's older sister Kathleen worked for a year. One of the oldest Italian vineyards of California, Seghesio is world famous for its Zinfandels (as are many vineyards of the area). After a great tasting (and conversation) with a couple staff members who had many kind things to say about Kathleen, we made our way through Dry Creek Valley and four more vineyards. We said we weren't going to get a lot of wine, but ten bottles later we're wondering where we'll fit the case. We'll worry about that later. It was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky and about 85 degrees. Shauna was in her glory, and we topped it off with a wonderful dinner at Dry Creek Kitchen, one of Healdsburg's best restaurants.
We're now done spending money and on our way back down the middle of California to see the Sierra Nevadas. First up is Sequoia NP to see the world's largest trees followed by Yosemite NP, what many say is America's most beautiful NP. From there we move north to Lake Tahoe before moving up to Redwood NP (more large trees) before getting into Oregon.
Until then,
S&P
It has been another great week of beautiful scenery, but most recently with some time well spent with good friends in between.
We Left Kanab and bombed it 500 miles across I-15 to Los Angeles, driving through Las Vegas in the process. It was eight more hours of desert before we finally reached the coast. Southern California is a weird place because without a ton of man-made it has no business being there. A lot of water is diverted from other parts of the country so that L.A. can drink it and keep their lawns green. The landscape coming in is literally desert leading up to 9,000 foot mountains, on the other side of which is land leading into the Pacific ocean. It's pretty dramatic, and the fact that in the winter one can go to the beach and ski in the same day (traffic permitting, of course) is ridiculous. The traffic is terrible, however, but that is a well known fact and needs no further explanation here.
We stayed with Shauna's very good friend from high school, Laudan. Unfortunately Laudan's boyfriend and roommate Grant was away for the weekend covering Comic-Con in San Diego. Coincidentally they will be in Portland at the same time as us so we'll get to know him a bit better then. Anyway, Laudan and Grant live on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, smack dab in the middle of the city. Laudan lives only three plus miles from her job at Paramount Studios, and she took us on a VIP tour as soon as we got in. It was fun and interesting to actually do the tour after seeing people do it on TV all the time. We walked down the recreated NYC streets, ducked into several studios (including those used for Community and Glee), and parked in "the tank". The tank is usually a parking lot sunk five feet or so below all the other lots. It's painted light blue and on one side is a huge screen with a blue sky painted on it. This is where they film ocean scenes such as the one from The Truman Show where he breaks out of the island. Apparently it takes two days to fill. We didn't see anyone famous as the summer is kind of a dead time in Hollywood.
The next day was a total touristy one. We met up with Shauna's other good friend from high school, Michelle, and hiked up to the top of Runyon Canyon. Michelle, who Pat knows well from NYC, just moved out to LA with her boyfriend Casey, and it was great to have them as another comfort in La-La Land. Michelle picked us up and we drove past some unbelievable homes leading up to the entrance of the trail. At the entrance we met up with Pat's good friend from high school, Jesse, and continued to the top. Jesse's story: Moved out to L.A. to pursue an acting/writing career after doing it in NYC for a while. He has appeared in a lot of successful commercials that every once in a while surprise us in the most random places. You could be in your apartment or visiting friends anywhere in the country and Jesse's face comes on the tube. It's a weird experience. Anyway, we did Runyon partly to get some exercise and partly (mostly for Shauna) to spot a celebrity. As with Paramount we didn't see anyone, but the hike was worthwhile and you can see the whole city (what's not distorted from the smog). After the hike we left our friends and got in the car for a driving tour of the city. We drove through some of the amazing neighborhoods of Beverly Hills (at one point passing some mob-looking guy and his son jogging while two tinted-out white Escalades drove slowly next to them) and down Rodeo Drive. We did a loop of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard and ended up in Hollywood and got the most amazing car wash ever. We suppose the car wash makes sense since everyone drives.
That night we went out for a great dinner with Laudan, her two friends, Michelle, Casey and his buddy from NYC who was in to MC a yoga festival of some sort. Pretty cool gig; he just flies around the country and world MC'ing. Anyway, we did dinner and proceeded to go out and get sauced. Jesse and Pat's little sister's best friend Shannon (also from Saratoga and we love her; works for Dustin Hoffman's family) met up as well. There was a couple of photo booth sessions involved and was overall a swell time.
The following day was a much needed beach day in Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Once we made our way through the horrific traffic and managed to park, the beach was great. The weather was perfect and the water was warm enough. We met up with yet another high school friend as well. Shauna's friend Matt moved to Venice years ago and never looked back, and he showed us around the area. After several hours of beach time we moved to a bar on the beach where Matt knew the bartender. We got two for one drinks and ordered a fantastic amount of nachos. After a few rounds we made our way back to relax and hit up Yogurtland (via Michelle and Casey's amazing apartment). The night was a welcome break from the previous action-packed 36 hours.
The next day was Sunday and we lounged around watching TV and Shauna got workout tips from Laudan. After Shauna was sufficiently worn out we showered up and took off up the 1 towards San Francisco. Going 115 miles took us over three hours. Most of that time was sitting in traffic from Santa Monica to Malibu, just six miles north. It was a Sunday so we shouldn't have been surprised. We weren't in any kind of rush so we stayed sane, but we think the traffic would probably drive us crazy if we lived there. Malibu is beautiful, however. Pepperdine University might be the best place in the country to go to college. Literally perched on a hill overlooking the Pacific, you have to enter the campus from Route 1. It's incredibly beautiful. Leaving Malibu and the traffic behind, we continued up the highway passing beach after beach along the way. We eventually made it to Santa Barbara and stopped for dinner. The downtown reminded us a bit of Saratoga but a lot newer and with unaffordable homes surrounding it. Maybe it's more like Westchester then, but either way it's gorgeous. This will be a recurring theme as we describe the cities along the 1. Santa Barbara is beautiful and looks like a great place to live. If you can afford it then it's definitely a place to check out. We camped at El Capitan State Beach about ten miles north of the city. The campsites sit in a wooded area but are only steps away from a fantastic and relatively empty beach. The beaches get more and more beautiful and less and less crowded as you go north, but the water and air temperatures get much colder at the same time. For beaches and swimming then, the area around Santa Barbara is a good compromise.
Our second day we drove the 1 up to San Luis Obispo, probably our favorite spot on the coast between L.A. and San Fran. The city has a great vibe. If Santa Barbara is Westchester, the San Luis Obispo is Saratoga. It's not huge, but the downtown was big enough to have at least one of everything. The pretty houses streaming organically from the main drag throughout the area look perfect. It felt less uppity than Santa Barbara while still having more than enough class. It's a little out of the way being about 250 miles from both L.A. and San Fran, but that may also be a plus for some people. From here we continued north to the tiny but beautiful town of Cambria. This is like a small Vermont town, with one main drag selling antiques and ice cream, but also along an amazing stretch of beach in California. We had lunch here before getting to our campsite a few miles north at San Simeon State Beach. After setting up camp we tried to sun ourselves but it was just too damn cold. The weather didn't get much above 60 degrees and doesn't again until north of San Fran. California is not all perfect weather, depending on who you ask. The 75 and sunny everyday weather is confined to a tiny area around L.A. and San Diego. The coast north of here is just cold (as is the water), and over the mountains next to the coast it gets uncomfortably hot and dry. You also have the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the western part of the state, but we'll get to that in our next blog. Anyway, we couldn't stay on the beach and so made our way to Hearst Castle. The estate was built by William Randolph Hearst, who along with Joseph Pulitzer were the kingpins of Yellow Journalism. Basically they started what has now become the garbage news like The NY Post or OK Magazine. As you could guess Hearst became extremely rich and built one of the most extravagant Mediterranean-style mansions in the country. It's now in the hands of the state and is a big tourist attraction along the coast. We didn't pay to go in, but as the pictures show it looks beautiful from afar, and he didn't have a bad view. We also walked the beach opposite the castle and saw an amazing array of marine life. Dolphins, seals, elephant seals, otters, and a plethora of fishing birds among them. In fact, the whole coast from L.A. to north of San Fran is one of the best sections on earth to see such a diverse amount of marine life.
The next day we continued up the 1 and lunched in Big Sur, a fantastic little town. After that we hit Carmel and the famous 17 mile drive, which includes Pebble Beach, possibly America's most recognizable golf course. After that we hit Monterey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, possibly America's best known aquarium. The whole area is famous, but we're sure the real estate prices reflect this fact. We made it to our campgrounds at up to Sunset State Beach, about half way up Monterey Bay. This was probably our favorite campground, if only because of all the beautiful fruit and vegetable farms in the area. California is among so many other things "America's Salad Bowl", and this area made us realize why. Field upon field grew everything from baby greens to strawberries. Driving through the lettuce fields was humbling (to see the amount of work that goes into producing lettuce).
The next day we continued north to Santa Cruz, yet another town that reminded us of a newer New York town. Here you also have one of the best surf breaks in California. Again the water is uncomfortably cold but as long as you can deal with that Santa Cruz is a sweet place. We continued to pass beautiful beach after beautiful beach until we stopped in Half Moon Bay, yet another gorgeous town along the 1. It's also only thirty-five miles south of San Fran. Here we got great chowder at Sam's Chowder House and ate next to the NFL player Tyson Alualu, a defensive tackle for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was just too big not to notice, and after a little Google search of Polynesian NFL players we found him.
We made our way to San Francisco, and we should just as well start talking about Healdsburg, our last destination on this blog. We spent five full days in San Fran, but neither of us remember much of it, except that it was a lot of fun. The first night we do remember well, and that was spent with one of Pat's favorite cousins, Honora, and her husband Alex. Honora is eight plus months pregnant and they invited us over to see their place and catch up. It was a great night and so insane to see her belly. Congrats guys! We will see you both soon. Other than that, two of Pat's best friends live out there, one being Tim and the other Dicky. There was a perfect storm brewing this particular weekend, and we were lucky to survive it. One part of the storm was simply that we were coming out to visit, but more of it had to do with the fact that Dicky was leaving after three years to move back east. No matter what, Pat, Tim, and Dicky are a bad combination and a lot of silliness took place. We'll let the pictures (what's appropriate to post) do the talking. There are just too many stories we can't describe here. Saying that, Tim and his roommate Sarah were the best hosts we could have asked for and we thank them immensely. Shauna was jealous of their apartment and has now started a list of what we absolutely must have in our next place. The group of people Tim and Dicky introduced us to were all amazing. It was great catching up with our friend Michelle as well. They all have (and Dicky had) a great life out there and San Fran is in general one of our favorite places in the country. There should not need to be an explanation but San Fran is a must see when experiencing America. It's a top five (higher for us) city of America, if not the world.
After thankfully surviving San Fran, we made our way north to Healdsburg, the wine capital of nothern Sonoma. As wine country goes, Sonoma is laid back compared to Napa. Both have their perks, but Pat wanted to show Shauna Healdsburg first. We started at Seghesio first, where Pat's older sister Kathleen worked for a year. One of the oldest Italian vineyards of California, Seghesio is world famous for its Zinfandels (as are many vineyards of the area). After a great tasting (and conversation) with a couple staff members who had many kind things to say about Kathleen, we made our way through Dry Creek Valley and four more vineyards. We said we weren't going to get a lot of wine, but ten bottles later we're wondering where we'll fit the case. We'll worry about that later. It was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky and about 85 degrees. Shauna was in her glory, and we topped it off with a wonderful dinner at Dry Creek Kitchen, one of Healdsburg's best restaurants.
We're now done spending money and on our way back down the middle of California to see the Sierra Nevadas. First up is Sequoia NP to see the world's largest trees followed by Yosemite NP, what many say is America's most beautiful NP. From there we move north to Lake Tahoe before moving up to Redwood NP (more large trees) before getting into Oregon.
Until then,
S&P
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