It’s that time of year again, and the Fish and I decided to head up north to spend a wonderful 3 days away from the homeland grind. We (well, SHE) planned a fun trip for Thursday – Saturday, but we both decided to not make any plans for Saturday night and we would just play it by ear. We are an adventurous pair but also don’t do anything without a plan, so this was a bit outside of our comfort zone.
Thursday-
Since it’s a calm 3-hour drive up to Cambria, we usually like to travel in style by renting a nice, mid-sized SUV. There’s usually plenty of room inside for all of our ‘stuff’ and also gives us the option to trample on land not made for a typical low-riding car. This time, however, the Fish surprised me with something a little different; she rented a 2013 Mini Cooper! While this does limit our off-highway excursions, my lovely wife thought that this miniature Cooper car would be a blast to drive on one of our favorite roads: Highway 1 from Cambria to Monterey. More on that later.
The Mini is a cool little car but a word of caution to the elderly; it’s not fun to pull yourself out of often. You see, the Fish and I own a (slightly) lifted Ford truck and a Honda CRV; both vehicles that require little effort to get in or out of. The Mini, on the other hand, tops out about half-way up the door to the Ford (and just slightly above the window on the CRV). This made entry and exit a bit challenging at first, but we got used to it soon enough. With the rear seats down, there was also plenty of room for everything. The Mini is just that…MINI, and we probably wouldn’t be able to use it if Bailey were in tow with us.
Our journey started after the Fish got off work on Thursday afternoon (about 1:30ish). We headed out, taking the 101 North for awhile until it dropped us off at PCH/Highway 1. We continued our beach side trek up the 1 until we came to Cambria, at which time we made a slight detour through the center of town. You see, we USUALLY stay in Cambria, but for this trip we decided to stay just North in a town called San Simeon (about 5 minutes up the road). This was a last minute decision to try something different…one of which we probably won’t do again.
We arrived at The Morgan, our ground zero for the next two days, while it was still daylight. It’s a nice place and the people were very friendly, but you tend to miss the small amenities that come along with being in a big city with large hotels; there’s no automatic door letting you in, no elevator to the 2nd floor and no AC…why do you need that??? You’re right on the beach! After trudging up 18 stairs with our ‘stuff’, we cleaned up a little and decided food was the next necessary item on our list. After a quick Yelp of the area, the Fish suggested a little Mexican restaurant conveniently located right next door…El Chorito.
Yelp is a great tool. You get to learn a lot about a restaurant, a service or anything else you might be interested in trying out. Our usage gave us some info on El Chorito; Some wrote they had good food, others didn’t (more good than not), but they all agreed it was a bit overpriced. We ate a somewhat light meal and received the same sticker shock those on Yelp apparently did…a $30+ ticket for a MINIscule meal (not everything was MINI on this trip). After resuscitating each other, we headed back to The Morgan to call it a night.
Friday-
Friday was going to be a big day for Funky Monkey and the Fish. We started the day with a free continental breakfast courtesy of The Morgan which, as I’m sure some of you know, turns out to be croissants, boxed cereal and bananas. We wolfed down our exciting meal, jumped back into the Mini and headed out to our first stop – the Elephant Seals.
If you EVER go up North to this area, this is one stop you MUST make. This one of the main rookeries of the California Elephant Seals, and they are here year-round, whether it be the parents, the babies or both. They’re really interesting to watch and how they interact with each other. You can get REALLY close, so there’s plenty of great picture opportunities (check out the Elephant Seal Gallery here). The Fish is over-the-top obsessed with them and has been learning quite a bit about their behavior and lifestyle. Heck, we even joined the Friends of the Elephant Seals (FES). Check out the links at the bottom of the post for more info on these fascinating creatures.
We left the seals and continued North to Carmel by way of Highway 1. We both have our favorite parts of this trip and, while the Fish has her seals, I get the twisty, cliff-hanging 75-mile drive from Cambria to Carmel! This road is built into the mountain face (the side that faces the water) and at times has a sheer drop of thousands of feet (ok, maybe not quite THAT far, but pretty darn far!). It’s also a one-in/one-out type of road so, once you’re on it, there are no outlets until you reach the other end. It’s a good 2-hour drive, winding and twisting through mountain-side forests and small towns. This is where the Fish’s MINI-rental made me smile.
About half-way through the drive, we ran into some signs that said ‘Road Work Ahead’ and ‘Be Prepared to Stop’…you know, those giant orange ones you don’t want to see while you’re on a 75 mile, one-lane road in a fun, fast little car? Ya, well, there they were, glaring us in the face, letting us know we were about to stop behind a buttload of grandparents in Corvettes and families in oversized motorhomes. Sure enough, we got caught up just around the bend from the construction. After a short-ish 25 minute wait, we were off again and actually got a chance to see what the delay was all about. The construction boys have been quite busy over the past year and created an amazing bridge/tunnel on the side of the mountain (that we actually drive through). It’s just crazy to think how something like this gets built and the technology needed to do so. So cool.
We completed the rest of our 75-mile trip after a few ‘proper-passing’ techniques, and decided we would use Yelp (once again) to find us a little something yummy to eat in the Carmel area. The Fish pulled up a place called Flanagan’s, an Irish-American pub set back in a small, artsy shopping area. We made our way to the upstairs area and had a seat near the window. Being an European place, we both knew that the food was probably going to be exceptional…so the Fish ordered Fish and Chips (odd, right?) and I ordered the Bangers and Mash. Now, I would not normally order this, but one of my favorite comedic actors (Russel Brand) sang a song in the movie Get Him To The Greek entitled “Bangers, Beans and Mash”. Great movie, great song so, of course, I had to give it a go.
The fish and chips were enormous and beyond yummy. It was sooooooo fresh and lightly battered, I had to steal one from the Fish while she wasn’t looking (ok, she offered it to me since I wouldn’t stop talking about it). The Bangers and Mash was fantastic too!!! For those of you that are too afraid to Google it, Bangers are basically pork or beef sausage. I gobbled them down faster than you can say “Oh come for my bangers! … my beans and mash!”.
Before heading back down the 75-mile stretch of loveliness, the Fish and I decided to grab some Carmel-style sweets. Yelp pointed us to a fun little shop called Nothing Bundt Cakes…one guess what they make. They offered samples (which were great) and a myriad of different bundt cakes to choose from! The Fish and I both ordered up a personal cake to go…hers was the marble cake and mine was the lemon cake. We would be saving these for the hotel later tonite.
We also did a little bit of Geocaching before the drive home. For those of you familiar with it, you’ll know that visiting a new area is always an exciting time when you’re a Geocacher. For those of you not familiar with it, it’s a world-wide scavenger-type hunt where you find items hidden (sometimes in plain view) by other ‘cachers’. Using a GPS device (or an app on your smartphone), you can pinpoint the location of these hidden gems, retrieve them and sign the log. It’s really a lot of fun, especially when the ‘Cache’ is hidden in a way that makes it a bit difficult to find. To this point we haven’t done any in Carmel, so we picked up a few while we were here.
The drive home was a little more crowded than the drive up, seeing as it was now more towards the middle of the day. We were able to continue a nice steady pace the whole way, even after being stopped at the bridge passing again. The Fish got a bit hungry (or impatient) and broke out her marble bundt cake. That was quite alright as it was pretty darn yummy!
About halfway back, the Fish noticed a sign on the side of the road that said Treebone Resort and immediately requested that we turn around and check it out. She said she had seen a TV spot all about the Treebone and thought it was really cool but didn’t think I would be into it. I asked about it, and she told me that it is a resort that is basically a glorified campground. You stay in rooms called Yurts; tent-like circular wooden frames covered in fabric. Most of the creature comforts are in the room, however the shower and restrooms are a short distance away. So let me get this straight; no real walls to block the natural sounds, lights, or smells and I have to walk out in the wilderness to go to the bathroom??? Uh, ya Fish, we are checking it out!
We stopped and did a quick tour and found that most of them have attached decks that, once you go out onto them, give you and amazing view of the ocean. It’s quiet, DARK, and you can hear almost every cricket, frog, Sasquatch and Chupacabra in the area. It’s really pretty cool, but unfortunately there were no Yurts available that night or the next…or the next couple weeks for that matter. I guess we’ll have to do that some time later in the year.
After a quick trip back to The Morgan to clean up, the Fish and I headed to one of our favorite restaurants in Cambria, The Sow’s Ear. The food here is always amazing, and again since it was our anniversary weekend, we decided to indulge in a bit of wine. A glass or two later (or however many a complete bottle fills) and two completely devoured filet mignons, we headed back to the room to enjoy a nice, quiet evening with the remaining lemon bundt cake. Full bellies + wine = almost immediate sleep…the bundt cake would have to wait.
Saturday-
We were up bright and early on Saturday but weren’t really feeling The Morgan’s ‘croissants and Cheerios’ continental breakfast, so the Fish Yelped us an alternate breakfast location. We ended up at the Redwood Cafe, a yummy little cafe located in the heart of Cambria. This place is like the Cheers of Cambria…everyone that came in knew everyone else, and they talked as if they’ve all been living there for many years. Our food was great and the Cafe definitely had a very ‘homey’ feeling (as in, being at home, not ‘wassup homey’).
Since the beginning of the trip, we knew that Saturday night was up for grabs as far as where we were staying…or even if we were staying. The Morgan was nice, but it didn’t really hold a candle to one of our favorite hotels in Cambria, Hotel El Colibri. Knowing we’d be probably setting ourselves up for disappointment, we headed over there after breakfast to see if they possibly had a room for the night. Yes, it was a risk and yes, it was probably going to be expensive, but it was our anniversary so we had to try. Lo-and-behold, we were able to secure a jacuzzi-room for a moderate price, and for just the one night! It was a special weekend…let me tell ya!
Since our day was starting off so well, we decided to use Saturday as a chill-day. We made another trip to see the Elephant Seals and did a little shopping on the main Cambria strip. We found some cool vintage Formula 1 posters, a dress for the Fish and a cool gargoyle ‘thing’ for my desk. Yes, odd, and probably not something I needed but it’s just cool looking so I had to have it.
The evening started a bit early with us eating at Los Cambritas, a Mexican restaurant on the main Cambrian strip. The Fish was feeling a bit sassy so she ordered up a margarita (with me following suit) and come to find out that they are NOT shy with their alcohol! I think they overdose the first one to get you liquored up so that you’ll give in to the ol’ ‘Sure, I’ll have another’ routine. Well, it worked. We had a few of those before finishing our meals and the resulting buzz lead us next door to an antique shop to spend more money. This shop had everything you could think of; old license plates, antique furniture, albums, vintage toy cars, china and cook wear. They had dolls, clothes, knives and posters. This place had it all, and we picked up a few things that we didn’t need, as usual, but it was fun, and I’m sure we’ll be back again.
When we walked back into El Colibri for the night, we saw they had some live entertainment in the lobby/cocktail room. We made our way back to the room to freshen up and then back to the lobby to see what all the hub-bub was about. A single singer was entertaining the small room, a few people speckled throughout having some wine and nibbling on some cheese. Ok, ya, this is our kind of place! We sat down and were soon greeted by a lady from the local Robert Hall Vineyard. She let us know they were having a wine-tasting session tonight and wanted to know if we were interested. Of course we were, and in less than a blink of an eye had two glasses filled with the first wine sampling of the night. We tested 4 different wines, learned the art of the ‘swish’ and ‘smell’, and even played with a ‘wine wheel’. Wine is something we’ve always been interested in knowing more about and I think this tasting is what it took to complete the hurdle. We now have a few bottles here at the house and are planning a few trips to Napa in the near future.
Sunday-
Surprisingly, we were up quite early even after our long night of wine and cheeses. We wanted to get an early start home to (hopefully) miss some of the traffic down Highway 1. We stopped at Cambria Coffee Roasting Company for a quick bite and a cup of Hot Chocolate. Before leaving, we picked up one more Geocache near the road that exits the town. As we got back in the car, we noticed a side road with a sign sporting a twisty arrow and the words ‘Next 14 Miles’. A quick look on the GPS and we noticed it was heading right towards Highway 46, our actual destination road. We called another audible and decided one last backroad adventure was in order, so we started down the 14-mile stretch.
Let me tell you when I say that this was a backroad, it WAS a back road. It was narrow and bordered by trees, barb-wire fencing and an occasional ditch leading down to a creek. It was beautiful country where cows were abundant, as were horses and, get this…wild turkeys!!!! Yes, multiple times as we cruised down the twisty, up-and-down road we encountered packs of wild turkeys. I spoke to a few as we passed (gobble gobble) and the entire group would gobble-gobble back at me. We even came across a bunch of scary vultures feasting on a recent roadkill. They weren’t all that happy that we were there but certainly weren’t going to mess with a bright red MINI Cooper.
After a longer-than-expected 2-hour trek that covered ONLY 14 miles, we found ourselves back on our normal route home. We decided to take Highway 154 (Chumash Highway) as a bit of a short cut to make up some time, and stopped in Santa Barbara for a bite to eat at Giovanni’s Pizza (again, thanks Yelp). A rather large pizza joint (with only one person it in when we showed up), we were happy to see more and more people start showing up (and that the food didn’t suck!).
We finally pulled into the driveway around 4pm. The house was standing, the cat was alive and the kids were awake. That’s a triple-YAY in my book!
This was definitely one of the best adventures the Fish and I have taken…not just because it was our anniversary, but because we left a lot of our trip off of the ‘planning book’ and just played it by ear. Thanks babe for another great year. I love you, and look forward to filling this site up with a lot more adventures.
If you are interested in checking out any of the places the Fish and I visited, check out the links below.
Cambria
The Morgan
El Chorito
Yelp
Friends of the Elephant Seals (FES)
Flanagan’s Pub
Get Him to the Greek
Nothing Bundt Cakes
Geocaching
Treebone Resort
The Sow’s Ear
Redwood Cafe
Hotel El Colibri
Los Cambritas
Robert Hall Winery
Cambria Coffee Roasting Company
Giovanni’s Pizza
We’ve added a ten minute documentary depicting the remarkable and uplifting story of the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris). Enjoy.
A few pix from our trip. Don’t forget to check out our Elephant Seal Gallery!
