First off, we LOVE to travel. Traveling and food are our two favorite things-combining the two is even better! Our California vacation started from this amazing book we got for Christmas from Matt's mom called 36 Hours: 150 Weekends in the US and Canada. It is an awesome book that tells you the best things to do (and places to eat) in cities across the country if you only have a weekend. So we took the book and off we went- San Diego to San Francisco in 8 days! We went to:
San Diego, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Big Sur, Carmel by the Sea, Pebble Beach, Sausalito, Sonoma, and San Francisco
We flew out of Knoxville (which is a great little airport!), laid over in Charlotte and landed in San Diego at 10am on Friday morning. We rented a convertible...and ended up with an Eclipse Spyder... We laughed and enjoyed it. San Diego was especially awesome because we got to see Jenn (one of my best friends from Charlotte who now lives in SD). It was great to see her and have a personal tour guide!
The best food we ate in San Diego has to be amazing fish tacos we had at this little place on water at Ocean Beach. These pictures were taken at the pier outside the restaurant.
Matt and I at the pier!
Sea lions and seals basking in the sun. This is where they come to have babies.
Ocean Beach!
Jen took us to the top of this mountain where we could see all of San Diego! It was really neat. Matt and I thought that this cross at the top was cool. The plot of land that is within that fence is privately owned so that the cross could stay there. Otherwise, the City would have to take it down.
Jen and Corey live 5 minutes from the beach at Sunset Cliffs...so of course we had to get a few pictures when the sun was setting. After our photo shoot, we headed to this delicious Vietnamese place where I finally got some pho! It was delicious!
We had a great day in San Diego. It was great catching up with Jen too. Saturday morning, Jen and Corey took us to a state park near their house where we could see more of San Diego. We also went to the Old City were we saw some cool old buildings, fun dancers, and ate delicious Mexican food. After lunch, we said goodbye to Jen and Corey and hit the road to Santa Barbara.
Jen had these great flowers in her yard- Birds of Paradise. Aren't they beautiful? Also, how cute is their house..just a couple of blocks from the beach!
We took the highway to Santa Barbara. We wanted to take the Pacific Coast Highway (the PCH per the locals :) ) but we also wanted to enjoy Santa Barbara for dinner so we took the quick route. We stayed at the Harbour View Inn in Santa Barbara, which is right on the main road, Cabrillo Boulevard. Our room had a view of the ocean which was very nice. Another nice surprise was that they gave us complimentary champagne on arrival. I told them that we were celebrating surviving the move and Matt's new job. How nice of them!
Once we got settled, we headed to dinner. Thanks to Yelp, we found an AMAZING dinner spot and it was right across the street on the pier. It is called Santa Barbara Shellfish Company. It was tiny and probably sat 30 people. After about a 45 min wait (it was only 6:00) and a delicious homemade bloody mary, we were seated! It was worth the wait. We got amazing soup, salad and crab!
I got clam chowder and a cesar salad
Matt got lobster bisque and cesar salad.
The menu board...we were seated at the bar (we loved it)
We both got the Rock Crab Special
YUM! The crab was huge!
Of course we had a post dinner photo shoot (Matt LOVED these, ha!)
Sunday morning we went to the Santa Barbara Mission. The 36 Hour book highly reccomended this and it was completely worth it! It was my favorite part of Santa Barbara. We attended the 9:00 mass and not only was the church beautiful, but the choir was amazing! We loved it!
Pre-mass photo...another moment that Matt loved...don't we look exhausted!
Beautiful!
After mass, we went to breakfast in downtown Santa Barbara and then headed to Montecito. Matt read in the book that Montecito is where the good boutiques were and he wanted to buy me something pretty. Isn't that sweet of him? He picked out a great jacket for me...you will see me wearing it at Mission Ranch and Pebble Beach (pics coming tomorrow)! I love him soo much! He knows me so well.
Palm trees along Cabrillo Boulevard (iconic Cali right?)
The only pic we took in Montecito!
Santa Barbara and San Diego were great! I think that the best part of San Diego was seeing Jen and eating the fish tacos. The best part of Santa Barbara was dinner and the mission. The jacket was pretty great too!
Tomorrow I'll post about our drive from Santa Barbara to Carmel by the Sea, when we drove through Big Sur! I'll also share pictures from Pebble Beach. These were our favorite places by far and I have a lot of pictures to share!
On another note, today is day 1 our mine and Matt's 30 day fitness challenge! Eek! I'll share more about that this week!
xoxo
Fran
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