Drive up the California coast...

Since Brad moved to California, he's wanted to drive up the coast in his hot rod. About a year ago, we decided to go together, but have never been able to schedule a good weekend to go. We finally realized we didn't have much time before we move away from the state so it was time to go.

We worked a half day on Friday and then hit the road. We hadn't been going very long when we got stuck in traffic and nasty clouds rolled in. Fortunately the traffic was just due to construction and we passed by the weather quickly.

Since I moved to Lancaster, everyone has been telling me about a place called Solvang, that's a bit north of Santa Barbara. We decided it would be a good place to stop for dinner and to walk around for a while. The little city is a total tourist trap, but it is quite cute. Designed to look like a typical Danish village, it has lots of cute shops and pastry places. Unfortunately by the time we got there (around 6pm), everything was closed and the place was like a ghost town. It looked fairly rundown and we were disappointed to find that there were only 2 authentic restaurants where we could have dinner. The place we decided to eat had the cutest old man sitting outside playing an accordian. Unfortunately, the grill was broken, so we went to another place on the other side of town. The food was ok, but it was incredibly over priced. However, they had fresh strawberries fresh picked from the local Santa Maria, which were some of the best (and biggest) strawberries I've ever had.

After dinner we drove a little bit further up to Lompoc where we stayed at the Embassy Suites for the night.

Saturday morning we got up and started the main drive up the coast. Brad was pretty disappointed in the central coast saying he was surprised at how brown it was. However, once we passed Hearst Castle (San Simeon), he seemed to enjoy the view a lot better. The coast line is spectacular, and we lucked out with gorgeous weather. We stopped at a bunch of pull-outs to take pictures and admire the beautiful view.

We decided to drive up to Big Sur for a late lunch and take a hike.

The plan was to end the day in Monterrey. We decided to stop at Laguna Seca (a famous race track) and check it out. Brad was in heaven. There was a 24 hour mountain bike race going on and a few cars driving on the main track. I think Brad was a little bummed he couldn't race on the track, but he still enjoyed it.

Unfortunately Brad noticed the car was rattling pretty badly so he had to go in search of some parts for the car. He dropped me off at the Naval Post Graduate School, where we were staying for the night. I was able to do some homework so it worked out nicely. That evening we went out to Cannery Row where we had an awesome seafood dinner and walked along the beach.

The next day we had to head back home, but it was a really nice weekend.