Spring Break - Day 1 (PCH Drive)

One of the many fantastic views along the PCH drive

Friday, March 23, 2012

I was debating for awhile what I wanted to do for my spring break this year, the last spring break of my life, and the last guaranteed vacation I have until I have a job to have a vacation from.  Having not been on a road trip since my cross-country adventure almost 20 months ago, and with a more exotic international trip not in the budget, this break seemed like a good time to hit the road again and explore California at greater length.  About a month ago, Stephanie and I had booked a three night stay at a hotel in Lake Tahoe with the idea of hanging out and skiing, but it wasn't until the day before the trip that the rest of the itinerary was mostly finalized.  The basic plan for our 5-day, 6-night trip was: Santa Barbara, a scenic drive up the coast via the famous Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) through Big Sur, three nights in Lake Tahoe, and one night camping in Death Valley National Park.

Featured car of the Spring Break 2012 Road Trip

Luckily the Civic (which is still going strong, by the way, at least when on flat terrain) wasn't going to be our vehicle of choice for this trip, being replaced by a newer, more structurally sound Nissan Sentra.  However, to prepare for the potentially treacherous snow conditions I had to research what snow chains are, purchase them, and then learn how to install them in the past two days.   Packing also required some thought, as it included a mix of warm weather clothes, cold weather clothes, skiing gear, and camping/hiking gear.

With the prep behind us, we hit the road at 10 am Friday morning, arriving in Santa Barbara around noon. We went to a restaurant called Andersen's Restaurant & Bakery for lunch (even on spring break, we can't escape Anderson). Initially I was disappointed because they told me that they no longer served breakfast, but they also happened to have omelets on their lunch menu so I had one of those. Steph had a crab salad Napoleon thingie with mango sauce and avocado and split pea soup. All the food was fantastic, definitely recommend this place. We walked around Santa Barbara for around an hour after brunch. I had never been there before, but it's a really nice, clean town with some interesting shops.

Danish architecture abounds in Solvang

Our next stop, about 50 minutes away, was a Danish style town called Solvang. This place was really interesting with Danish architecture, windmills, horse and buggies on the street, and delicious Danish pastries. We only intended it to be a short stop but ended up walking around for about 1.5 hours, enjoying the unique atmosphere and progressively improving weather.

The next stop on our itinerary was about 115 miles away at Hearst Castle. Since we took longer at our first two stops than anticipated, we didn't get to the castle parking lot until 6 pm.  We realized once we got there that we'd have to purchase a ticket tour to take the tram ride up to the actual castle (still a distance away).  Since we really wanted to be able to enjoy the PCH drive during as much daylight as possible, we decided to skip the castle tour and use the visitor center as a potty break and a chance to switch drivers before returning to the road.

This was a fairly typical view for about 200 miles

We still had 100 miles left until we arrived at our hotel, but this portion of PCH was supposed to be amongst the nicest drives in the country and I think it lived up to its reputation. Miles of coastline and mountain ranges greeted us as we drove around winding mountain roads. We made one stop for some great photographic opportunities as the sun was close to setting and then drove the rest of the way in darkness, eventually arriving in Monterey around 9:30 pm.  We were craving some BBQ and after our first choice was closed, we settled on Henry's BBQ which really hit the spot. We checked in to the luxurious El Castell Motel around 10:30 and relaxed after a long day of travel.

Miles Traveled Today: 330