Good Times

Cayucos to Santa Barbara and Beyond

We woke up very well rested, and Mark and Natalie, his girlfriend, greeted us with coffee and breakfast. Mark made this awesome concoction of avocado, hot sauce, and almonds on toast that was pretty delicious (Drew- a great vegan breakfast). Headed back up to Hearst Castle we passed the zebras once again minding their own business while amidst the cow and goats. We got on the bus for our tour, and the weather was prefect by California standards-74 and sunny. We were dropped of at the Neptune pool, which was one of 2 pools in the castle. The other one we would see at the end of the tour, and it was an indoor one complete with gold tiles and a 10’ platform diving board. W.R. Hearst basically outfitted this “house” (1 of his 11) with all sorts of relics and antiquities from Europe after WWII since the countries needed money, and he was a high bidder. He basically condensed all of 7 Spanish churches in his abode. From the ceilings to wall paneling it was all imported. Anyways, it would be cool to go back a visit again; we only got to see a fraction of the house. There are 5 different tours you can go on! Hopping back in the car (which was really dirty at this time..it even had tiger stripes on it made out of dirt) and headed to Solvang right outside Santa Barbara. Solvang reached its notoriety when the movie Sideways was filmed here a few years ago. In fact it is nothing more than a tourist trap and reminds me of Bush Gardens without any of the fun rides..so therefore it is lacking in the fun dept. If Solvang had a roller coaster I might go there more often (note to city council). So over the pas we went to Santa Barbara where we picked up Napoleon, who was a filthy mess after playing with dogs for 11 days straight, and headed to 5086 Rocoso Wy Santa Barbara 93117 (here is our address finally for those who keep asking…and it’s my birthday soon too). We unpacked the car and headed into town for some dinner at Sojourner café a cool restaurant with tons of Vegan options. It’s amazing how many choices there are for Vegans out here. We all were exhausted after being on the move for so long, but knew we had one more day of driving down to LA tomorrow to send Mike and Bri on their way home. I woke up this morning to find Mickael in the front yard sleeping like a homeless person since Napoleon was snoring too loud last night (he was really snoring loud for some reason). I was dreading driving down to LA because of the traffic, but we made it down there in a little over an hour and half. We met up with Mike and Brionna’s old roommates from Richmond Dave and Will and headed out for breakfast at Millie’s (same owner’s as the Richmond one..or used to be). After that we walked around Silver lake and since everything was closed (note..do not go to LA on Monday…everything is closed) we headed over to Fairfax where only ½ of everything was closed. Mickael passed out some Born Ugly Magazines at HUF and Supreme…The guys there pretended to be too cool to look at some zines even though the reality was they were probably just pissed that they were making minimum wage working the register at a skate shop. We then went to an awesome bookstore called Family across from supreme and picked up some books about art and stuff. If they had had cookbooks there…I probably would have bought one of those too. We then went back to Will and Dave’s house and said our goodbyes to our travel buddies. It was only 11 days with them, but we gained a lifetime of memories. We hope they have a safe flight home and come back soon…next time with Chance and a truck full of furniture!


Total stats
2214 miles traveled
640 dollars spent
10 days of fog
2 hunger strikes
1 great invention ...ask Nikki and Bri

No Reservations

Monterey to Cayucos

We woke up this morning to some fog yet again. It seems to be following us everywhere we and of course each time we ask someone he or she says that this is the worst fog in a number of years…go figure. We packed the car and headed towards Big Sur. We were going to do the 19 mile drive around Pebble Beach and Ghost Tree, but since it was a Saturday, the traffic was pretty bad so we headed straight on the 1. We stopped by a café at the River Inn, which is right as you enter Big Sur where we had a great breakfast in the SUN (finally). The café was great and it even had Adirondack chairs set up in the river for people to eat in the comfort of the running water. You can even bring your inner tubes and go for a ride after you eat…We’ll remember to do this next time. We started back down the road, and the scenery was amazing. It reminded us a lot like Oregon; except there weren't any guardrails down here…I was guessing it was because of the budget cuts. All of the bridges are simple compact concrete bridges built in the 1930s but still look very rigid and sturdy today. With the girls passed out in the back, Mike and I sat in the front talking about the cool things we had seen in the past week. One of the place that we didn’t get to stop at because of time but are curious to go back to is the Esalen Institute which has hot springs right on the ocean. The only problem is that you can only go by reservation between the hours of 1 and 3 a.m. that is correct..a.m. Imagine how the ocean and stars must look sitting in a spring in the middle of the night. We exited Big Sur and headed up to the Hearst Castle. This place is amazing. It makes Neverland ranch look like a motel 6. It sits way up high on a hill overlooking San Simeon Bay, and has tons of fruit orchards, cattle, own fire station, and even a few zebra. We pulled into the parking lot, and tried to go for a tour, but since we didn’t have any reservations we weren’t able to go on a tour. So we picked up some tickets for the next day and headed down to Cayucos about 15 minutes south. In Cayucos we stayed with Mark Interian, a friend of mine from dental school, whose house is amazing. He has some great vegetable gardens, little bungalows, and a creek all on his property. After showing us around, we headed down to Moro Bay for sushi which Nikki and Bri were craving the past few days. We had a great dinner and then headed back to the house where we all fell asleep to the sounds of the creek below.


Day 9 stats
117 miles driven
26 elephant seals
5 bridges crossed
0 guardrails

Stimulating that Economy

San Francisco to Monterey-
After a great night’s sleep in a bed for the first time in almost a week, we ventured out in the town in search of a good breakfast spot. We consulted Yelp for a good breakfast spot, and Brenda’s French Soul Food was hands down had the best reviews, and we headed down their to judge for ourselves. If you are ever craving any southern cooking in San Francisco…go there. The food was delicious, and just what we needed to start our morning off. After checking out of the hotel, we headed to the mecca of hippies, Haight Asbury to wander around some more shops and galleries. Nikki ended up finding some cool vintage bathing suits at La Rosa, and Mike and I ended up getting some original artwork by Jay Howell at the RVCA space. I am trying to start a mini art gallery in our place and will hopefully transfer it into my dental office in the distant future. We ended up heading over to golden gate park to meet up with one of my roommates from college Adam Carlson who is doing his residency at UCSF, and we all chatted over some crepes before he had to get back to work. It was good seeing him; I haven’t seen him in almost 4 years even though he was only in Charlottesville at UVA while I was in Richmond. We headed out of the city, all making promises to come back, since the 24 hours there wasn’t enough to even cover a fraction of all the city had to offer. The views driving down the coast to Monterey were again beautiful with the sun peeking out through the fog every once in a while. We stopped by Half moon bay and Mavericks imagining what the waves must be like here in the winter towering 40-60 feet high. We passed Santa Cruz, Seaside, and finally ended up in Monterey. Monterey has the same feel as Santa Barbara with a long stretch of shops and eateries like State Street. We didn’t have enough time to go to the aquarium, but we’ll have to do that on another visit. We settled into the hotel, and ordered some Chinese food, and called it a day after Nikki and Brionna had a very competitive pillow/jousting fight. I think Brionna put up a good fight, but she was no match for the MMA trainee…I’m glad those classes are going to some use.


Day 8 stats
121 miles driven
24 head shops
5 photos taken because of
2 sleepy girls

Land o' Plenty

Salt Point to San Francisco-
We awoke around 6:30 to the revving of the motorcycle engines at the campsite next to us. Imagine having an alarm clock that you can’t hit the snooze button on…it was kind of like that. With everyone being awake we decided to go exploring down by the beach since we heard that tide pools were in the area. After making sure that the raccoons didn’t run away with anything from the night before, we headed down to the beach. It was right between tides, so we found lots of cool things in the rocks from sea anemones, starfish, kelp crabs, and abalone. The fog started rolling in and we packed up and headed towards San Francisco. After about a 2 hour drive, we passed under the golden gate bridge (which is amazing) and entered into Japan town where we were staying at the Hotel Tomo. It was like we were staying in Tokyo with all the rooms having different themes..needless to say it was awesome, and I’m sure Brionna felt like she was at home. After unpacking, Mickael had an appt at Thrasher magazine to be shown around the place, so we headed over there to see what the inner workings of a magazine were all about. I was amazed at how small the space was for 3 magazines under the same roof. Thrasher, Juxtaposed, and Slap were all in the same area that was about 1600 square feet. We then headed down over to the Tenderloin area where all the art galleries were along with all the homeless and drug addicts. In about 5 minutes we were offered crack, morphine, and oxy cotton in the broad daylight. I’m glad art galleries always seek out the seediest parts of town to set up shop. We went into White Walls, Shooting Gallery, 111 Minna, and the Luggage store which all had pretty cool shows, but we were all impressed by Mike Maxwell’s stuff at the Shooting Gallery. We even got a chance to check out the SFMOMA, which had some cool special exhibits on Richard Avedon and Georgia O’keefe. Starving, we headed back to the hotel to eat in the downstairs restaurant called Mum’s where we had some shabu-shabu. It’s basically Japanese fondue and it’s delicious. After we refueled, Cody, one of Mike and Brionna’s friends from high school came by and took us out to Haight Street for drinks. The bar that we went to was called Molotov’s and the best part was that dogs were allowed inside. Cody’s girlfriend Julie stopped by and joined us telling us some great stories, and after a few hours we headed back for a good night’s sleep.

Day 7 stats
74 miles driven
14 kelp crabs
5 art galleries
1 full house

Ranger Rick

Orick, Ca to Salt Point, Ca
Today we had our long drive ahead of us. It wasn’t that far by any means, but the number of twists and turns on the road was a recipe for instant motion sickness. We stopped for a while to relax at the Eel River, and the water was a perfect temperature. It would have been a great place to go kayaking, but we definitely couldn’t have fit one in the car. While sitting on the rocks in the river, Nikki spied a drowning bat getting swept away by the current, and we hurried down the river to push it to safety. It caught it breath for a few minutes, and then while Nikki was telling Mike and Brionna the story it flew over us as if to tell us thank you. With our good deed done for the day, we headed from the 101 to the Avenue of Giants where the road was lined with giant redwoods. Even after seeing them the day before, they continued to amaze us. We stopped to grab lunch at a small café in Arcade, Ca before heading back over to the coast. The coast was a continuous sinuous road combined with the fog made for what seemed like a very treacherous drive. We made it to our campsite at Salt Point just before dusk (even though you can’t ever really see a sunset here with all the fog) and were hoodwinked by some older campers to change our campsite. We wanted the ones across from them, but they told Nikki that the one up the hill was much better. They just didn’t want to have to walk around the long road to use the restroom since the shortcut went straight through that campsite. After we had started making dinner, Mickael noticed a raccoon on a stump at the neighboring campsite. In a few minutes, the raccoon emerged right next to our picnic table, and had no fear as he climbed up on it to see what treats we had to offer him. Nikki and Mike clammered on some pots and pans to attempt to scare him away, but in about 30 minutes he reappeared except this time with a gang of fellow bandits. It was a constant struggle through dinner to keep the animals at bay, but once the food was put away, they seemed to turn their attention back to the dumpster down the road. We fell asleep to the barks of the sealions and the hoots of owls, and got ready to enter back into society and the hustle and bustle of San Francisco.

Day 6 stats:
294 miles driven
78 hairpin turns
13 crazy raccoons
1 wet bat

Land of the Giants

Cape Blanco, Or to Orick, Ca
We went for a hike on the beach this morning, and it looked like a driftwood graveyard. Amidst all of the fog, dunes, elk bugles, and dead trees it didn’t take too much imagination to wonder where the ideas for ghost stories came from. We came back to the campsite for some breakfast and got back on the road headed South. Our first detour for the final skate park stop in Oregon was Brookings where a 9-year-old girl dropping in at the 8-foot section of the bowl humbled Mickael. She humbly told us that she taught herself in only 3 years….it didn’t hurt either that she lived directly across the street. A few more miles and we were in California where we were greeted almost immediately by the giant redwoods at the Jedediah Smith Redwoods National Park. We had all seen photos of redwoods in books and photos, but to see these things up close is amazing. Everything in the forest is huge even the ferns and clovers, it was like you stepped back in time during the Jurassic period and expected to see a velociraptor around the next corner. We then stopped in Crescent City to get some food and firewood for the night. Crescent City was full of great people watching although it made us unsure of what they put in the water around here. We drove around for a while not actually sure of where our campsite at Gold Bluffs was, but we finally found it after driving down this 4 mile dirt path. Unfortunately the campsite was full, but we befriended 2 girls from Michigan who were nice enough to share their space with us for some beer…..after driving down that road and the thought of nowhere to sleep we thought this was a fair trade. The campsite was yards from the ocean, so we settled down and made a driftwood fire and fell asleep listening to the waves crash against the shore.

Day 5 stats
131 miles driven
26 feet wide trees
2 hippies
1 humbled skateboarder

Beers for Breakfast

Cape Lookout, Or to Cape Blanco, Or
We went for a hike this morning on the beach and after a few minutes were enclosed in such a dense fog that we had no way of knowing where the beach access was. After jump-starting our neighbor’s car, we headed back out on the road with our first stop being the Rogue Brewery makers of Dead Guy Ale and other great beverages. We were too late for the brewery tour, but still got a chance to see everything since the only way into the store was through the inner workings of the brewery. We then headed out to Seal Rock, and even though the area was absent of seals at the time it was full of crazy rock formations and agates. Our next stop was Waldport where we stopped at another local skate park (Oregon is littered with skate parks) for Mickael to skate, and he had the park all to himself. I’m not an expert on parks, but the ones out here are anything like the ones on the East Coast, all the kids and adults are friendly and parents are out encouraging their kids to be active. Also all the parks have huge bowls built in which makes the skate boarding out here more like surfing with smooth transitions versus the choppy style of the East coast. Speaking of skateboarding our next stop was at the sandboarding (I had no idea this even existed) capital of the US at the Oregon Dunes National Park. We pulled the car over just outside Florence, Or and headed up this sand hill only to emerge upon a vast landscape of endless sand dunes that stretched for miles down the coast flanked by the ocean, lakes and rivers. We stopped for lunch in Coos Bay at a great natural café and took in everything around us on their outdoor patio. Each town that we have driven through has had it’s own identity and we haven’t seen the same thing twice. We ended up camping out at Cape Blanco State Park, and it was freezing. We ended up wearing everything that we owned to make it through the night.


Day 4 stats
187 miles
40 miles of dunes
27 skater punks
3 degrees Celsius at night