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| When Life Gives You More at the Morro Bay |
My DH has accepted a new job in the sunny SoCal and it was time for us to say goodbye to our 9 years in Oregon. The company would pay for flights and it is so much easier to just quickly fly the two hours with two kids to our new home. But, then would it be as much fun? And hence, we decided to drive down from Portland, Oregon all the way to San Diego, California. A good six days of driving, of seeing new places, of meeting friends, of just being us!
Day 1: Enchanted!
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| Candy Candy Everywhere |
After a refreshing sleep at the company paid hotel we woke to our last few hours in Oregon. We went to our grocery store for 9 years and packed some snacks and launchables. With promises to be back, we drove towards the first fun destination of the trip, The Enchanted Forest. It's just an hour away from Portland, but, darkest under the lamp we'd actually never been there. Glad DH made a decision to stop there. It's not at expensive mini version of Disney land. It even has rides! 😊 It was a surprise for the children and they were beside themselves with glee when they found themselves at the gates of the park. From the house of the witch from Hansel and Gretel to the house of the Evil Queen from Snow White, from a waving Humpty Dumpty to sieving sand for treasure, it has it all. Do queue up for fun mini roller coaster rise for just $4 while you're there. We even saw spoof play on Cinderella where the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves! All in all, it is yet another happiest place on earth! After tucking in some hot pizza slices while watching the Dancing Fountains, we waves a goodbye at the magic around us.
Next we stopped at a small town called, Junction City to meet some friends who were on also a road trip from the Bay Area. It was a welcome change of beer, spicy wings, laughter, banter and simply catching up. Time to say good bye, we drove to our first halt for the night, Chemult. It's a little non-descript town with hardly a diner or two to find some grub. But, the bright side it's just 50 mins away from Crater Lake and provides a good halt for the distant weary traveler. We stayed at the Dawson House Lodge. Established in 1929, it's an interesting hotel complete with the old world charm and décor.
Day 2: Where the Blues means Happiness!
The next we dined at the local diner, KJ's Cafe. And then without much ado, drove all the way straight to the Crater Lake National Park. Being in a summer day, the lake was a perfect blue. We stopped at quite a few points to marvel at blues from various angles. When we grown ups see beautiful nature all around us, we feel peaceful, pensive and maybe humbled. I truly wonder what do little ones think of when they see the same. Do the feel humbled by the enormity around? Do they feel peaceful by the serenity and quiet around? I wonder! We found a spot which was like a few mins away from the crowd which let us have time to us for a little while as the four of us sat on broken logs enjoying the beauty ahead of us.
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| Beat The Blues |
Finally we made our way to the Visitor Center and during these covid times, we just didn't anticipate the wait there. Anyway, after almost a 30 wait in the line, we finally got in and grabbed t-shirts, mugs, souvenirs, lunch and of to beat the heat outside, ice cream! 🍦🍧 We tucked in our lunch sitting at the little café outside the Visitor Center and were soon back in our car. Somewhere while driving thru the country we said we said bye bye Oregon for a long long time.
The drive towards our next halt of the trip, Red Bluff, California was so different from the green Oregon, where the rivers have water no matter how hot it gets. The Sacramento River flows thru Red Bluff and amidst the hot August month, the river was dried all up. A hot and sultry California welcomed us to our life ahead. Best Western was our abode for the night and they even had a little Koi Pond (yes, that has water in it)!
Day 3: F.R.I.E.N.D.S.!
If one in your family is an engineer, you're bound to have heaps of friends in the Bay Area. And as my DH is an engineer so do we. We decided to stop at San Jose for two nights. Our first hosts were Sayak and Urmi, whom we knew from our good old Portland days. We reached San Jose around lunch time and not wanting to go too far away from our friends' house, we went to Crepevine for lunch. We tried some of their Thai and San Francisco savory crepes and the tri-berry dessert crepe and all were yummy! I later found out that they are a chain, so given that they are all over California, i would strongly say look them up to see if you have one near you.
And on that happy note, we bustled into Sayak and Urmi's house in a quaint hilly neighborhood. It was good to be in a home after three nights in hotels. In the evening, we have more friends join us. This time a little girl, Aruni also joined us and the three kids had a blast all evening. With finger licking good home cooked food in our bellies, we finally called it a night sometime around one in the morning and hit the bed.
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| Thank God for Friends! 💖 |
Day 4: Those 17 Miles With F.R.I.E.N.D.S.!
Morning was waking up to the sound and aroma of sizzling French toast for breakfast and wasn't before long followed by truly delicious Afghan food from from Kabul Afghan Cuisine. Kebabs, Pilaf of course were all good but, the king of the table remained the vegetarian Bulanee Katchalu (something like potato stuffed naans). It was all so good and none of us could simply stop eating. As I always thank God for friends. 😍
After that we bid adieu to Sayak and Urmi and drove over to our next hosts for the night, Partha, Malini and their not-so-little 8 year old, Rishaan. Goes without saying Rishaan is an absolute favorite of Rupkatha Abesh. More home cooked delicacies, more laughter and an evening full of board game welcomes us. It would be an understatement, if I say we simple has blast.
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| And Thank God for More Friends |
The next day was early one for us and all of dressed up and hit the road to start our drive via the famous Highway 101! We drove to the 17 miles drive and meandered thru will almost3 pm. We stopped at so many points and the kids just went unhinged with joy as they dipped their toes in the Pacific, ran along the beach and climbed and jumped over cliffs. We didn't even realize how time ticked away and hours passed by, we were have so much fun. Finally, we stopped for lunch, but, it was more like a 'lu-nner'. We finally stopped for some grub at the pretty town of Carmel-by-the-sea. We all ate family style washing down tacos, pizza, lasagna, With that it was time for a big teary good bye to our friends and to start driving towards our final destination for the day & night, the Sensorio, just a few miles from Paso Rubles.
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| Senses Zen at Sensorio |
In many ways, Sensorio was very different from our usual destinations, which are usually somewhere out there in nature. Sensorio is a garden of lights, thousand and thousands of lights of every color. Expect a line and very little wait at the entrance gate. You can join the faster line if you can get yourself to get the tickets online earlier (bless my DH to having done so). Once in, a few cheerful food trucks welcome you with picnic tables all round and enough space if you just want to grab a mat and flop down. As you stroll in thru the sprawling grounds you take a left turn walk in thru a passage and before long an entire sea of lights unfolds in front of you. Despite covid, it was fairly crowded. We walked around the LED flowers into another stretch where stood tall towers for bottles filled with LED lights. It was like stepping into a fairy tale and back for those few moments. Once, back in our hotel for the night we cheered to a wonderful day well lived and slipped into deep slumber.
DAY 5: Stunning Stones
Up and excited, we set forth to the next destination of the fun-trip - Morro Bay. I would say, this is yet another gem on the Pacific coast. Our first destination was the Morro Bay State Park, where we stopped by the sea where the beach is covered with hardened sea weed and fallen leaves and branches. There was a free for all Natural History Museum which Rupkatha and DH visited, as the in-love-with-the-outdoors Abesh and I explored the beach more. Next we drove to the most popular spot there, the Morro Rock. Having lived on the West Coast, I have befriend any a rocks spearing out of the sea very near to the shoreline. This was one such rock. In Oregon, these would always be wet and have moss on them. In California, these are always dry and full of crumbly rocks. Different! We walked around the trail around the rock and at the end of the trail there was another sea. This time of stone towers. Tens and hundreds of stone towers, small and big. We of course added our number to it.
It was time to listen to our beckoning tummies and we waited for turn to get into The House of Juju by the Sea. I'm having a hard time remembering what we had ordered, but, I do remember loving it all. Our waiter suggested some good local brews to go with it and it was a wonderful afternoon spent as the four of us laughed and nibbled away.
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| Towering with the Towers |
With a promise to be back, we drove out to Solavng, a quant little town less than hour away from Santa Barbara. It's a Danish themed 'touristy' town. It's street after street of Danish delicacies, souvenirs and Danish decors. Honestly, DH and I usually find such places a little too touristy. It's almost place made for sales. Maybe a quick few hours of strolling around does justice. We did the trolley ride around the town. Now, that was interesting as the girl on the bus told us about how the first Danish folks came there in the 1850's looking for economic respite. Even today, the quieter part of the town has lots of old Danish families settled there. We swung by the Olsen's Danish Village Bakery & Coffee Shop and loaded ourselves with the sugary Danish delights. Their Danish waffles are a must if you're there!
With that, we drove down to our last hotel of the trip, Inn By The Harbor at Santa Barbara. Little did I know that we were our last evening at a boutique hotel here. They had free wine, cookies, pretzels and candies at the lounge, a lovely pool, a patio that ran along inside the hotel and a on the house champagne chilling in the fridge. We literally did nothing else that evening. The kids splashed around in the pool as DH and I sipped wine. Honestly, it was a very welcome evening after many a busy days.
Suggestion: if you want a boutique hotel and a little kitchenette, I would strongly suggest this hotel. They had a fully furnished kitchenette as well. House keeping had kept four breakfast boxes and champagne in the fridge there.
Day 6: Curtain Fall!
It wasn't really rushed morning the next day either. After hearty breakfasts and hot showers, we checked out one last time and drove towards the Santa Barbara Mission. Steeped in history, the walls tell lores starting the 1770's about the city. The paintings inside the church were very beautiful. Next we visited the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. Sadly, due to covid most of the indoor tours including the ride to the tower were closed. However, the gardens were open and the kids just played jumping on the walls and you know, just being kids. We lunched at a local Cajun inspired joint there, Cajun Kitchen. We ordered the seafood gumbo and the jambalaya there. Their portions are hearty and when they say spice, they absolutely mean it. 😄 They also ample Ihop-ish options to choose from and we'd ordered some soul food for the kids. As promised to Rupkatha, we got some of their sugared beignets and folks, even if you're not getting your grub there, swing by and grab a bag of those. Those were so good!!!
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| What is her Mission? |
And with that ended our move from one home to another! And with that began our excitement of many a trips yet to be in our new home state, California. 😉
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