Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Road Trip

We have 3 adult children, and all of them moved within the last year. Ryan and Jaime (newlyweds New Years Eve) bought a larger condo in downtown Seattle. August newlyweds Adrienne and Justin bought their first home in Denver. And long-time marrieds (6 years) Mackenzie and Matt moved to Marina del Rey (LA) for new jobs two weeks ago. So for the second time in less than 6 months, we drove a truck from Seattle to deliver furniture and boxes, this time to LA.

We covered the 1,100+ miles in 2 days and arrived at Mackenzie and Matt's new place a block off the beach, with sunshine and temps in the high 60s. They'd already completed the move except for the items we brought, so most of the weekend was spent playing.

We went to a great Italian place in Venice where we sat in an outside courtyard for dinner Friday night. The rest of the weekend included a bike ride to Santa Monica,



 a brief stop at the Santa Monica pier,


and breakfast at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market where we picked up some veggies for later,

















a picnic lunch and tour of the J Paul Getty museum and gardens,



















and from which we could see Matt's new office tower in Century City,






After a whirlwind weekend, we went for a jog along the beach Monday morning, then headed north at a more leisurely pace than the southbound trip. After wandering through Malibu, we stopped in one of our all-time favorite cities, Santa Barbara, for lunch. Squished between the Pacific Ocean and the mountains, with palm trees everywhere and houses spread out on the hills with views of the ocean, this place has it all! Including great clam chowder at a harbor-front restaurant where we walked the docks ogling pretty boats.











After spending the night in Morro Bay, we headed north again, stopping just north of San Simeon (where Hearst Castle resides, though we didn't take that tour, same as the last two times we traveled Big Sur) to look at the always-hilarious Elephant Seals who haul out by the hundreds (or thousands?) on the beach. They snort, growl at each other, waddle in or out of the water (graceful in the water, but AWKWARD on land) and sleep in piles on top of each other. Fascinating!

















We've driven the Big Sur stretch twice before, both times southbound, so this was our first northbound journey. The weather was gorgeous most of the way, though it began raining toward the end. This is really spectacular country, though very remote and windy, so doesn't appeal to us as a place to live. But it sure is worth seeing, including the slow travel speeds around all the curves.

Tonight we're at Point Reyes Preserve, a little north of San Francisco, and the weather forecast calls for sunshine tomorrow, so we have no plan from here.



1 comment:

Matt said...

Enjoy your travels north (hope you have lots of sun). We thoroughly enjoyed our time with you last weekend in our new city!