So today was another travel day, this time from Napa back to San Francisco, with a significant detour via the Pacific Coast Highway. We started off the day at a breakfast spot recommended to us by our AirBnB host Matt, called Cafe Sarafornia in Calistoga. According to its sign it has the “best breakfast in town,” and I must say, it was quite tasty. It was the pretty much standard diner breakfast menu, French toast, pancakes, egg scrambles, but some dishes, like the eggs Benedict I ordered, had a “California twist” such as guacamole added to the dish and bacon substituted for the ham. After filling up we walked around a little downtown, explored a cute converted train depot where they had taken the old train cars and turned them into tiny shops, and then began our road trip for the day.
We set off on route 120 and drove it towards the coast until it ended. We passed through Sonoma county, with its seemingly endless vineyards, followed by Menodino county which was a lot of farmland, particularly cow and sheep pastures. Mendocino stretched all the way to the coast and there we met up with Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.
First view of the Pacific Ocean
The PCH is a beautiful, and very windy drive, you weave in and around the coastline getting glimpses of huge rock formations by the ocean along the way. We stopped at Manchester State Park which had a picnic area but also beach access, and my mom and I both had our first touch of the Pacific ocean (after multiple attempts to not get soaked by the incoming waves). There was a lot of cool driftwood along the beach as well as a lot of washed up plant life. The predominant organism that had washed up looked like giant firehoses with a circular root base, not sure what it was but it definitely looked weird. After our lunch of meats and cheeses we were back on the road for another few hours, stopping every once in a while for photos at particularly interesting spots. Somehow about an hour and a half outside of San Francisco we inadvertently got off the PCH which we realized after we stopped to get gas, but it was for the
Mom and I at the Pacific Ocean after almost getting soaked by a wave. (Photo courtesy of Jeremy)
better as it was approaching the end of the day and we were ready to get to the house so we hopped on the main highway into the city.
Our AirBnB home here (a “Hidden Gem that’s Close to it All!“) is what you’d think of as a typical San Francisco town home, up on the top of a steep hill (which requires some crazy maneuvering to park). It is listed as an “artists’ home” and it delivers, there are some very unique bits of art around the house. There are two large and one tiny (with bunk beds) bedrooms upstairs and the bathroom, kitchen and living/dining area are downstairs.
Once we got everything inside and we were settled in I poked around a bit online to see what our dinner options were but in the end we opted to order pizza. The highest recommended place that delivered to us was Goat Hill Pizza, who were known for their sourdough crusts. We ordered a ham pizza for the guys and a mushroom and spinach pizza for the girls (yay for online ordering). Both pizzas were quite tasty and we enjoyed them with a bottle of California merlot we had bought at the grocery store earlier this week. After dinner we all poked around online a bit (yay for free wifi) and then headed to bed.
To check out all of the Pacific Coast Highway photos, visit the Flickr set.
