What we've been up to Sunday - Tuesday

After leaving Pasadena/Hollywood we began our trek up the coast. On Sunday we spent quite a bit of time in Santa Barbara. It is a beautiful city. They were having an Art Festival which is usually hard for me to pass up. We also went to the Sea Center on the pier, the kids enjoyed some hands on fun there. We took pictures of the kids on the street named after our own last name. There was a skate park on the beach. My son thought you could just wait in line to get in and use the next skateboard available. He thought it was pretty cool. That night we spent the night in Pismo Beach at a hotel on the water. It was actually situated near a cliff overlooking the beach. Going here reminded me that as a little girl we had a bumper sticker that said "Where the H--L is Pismo?" not sure why we had it? I know we had visited California, not sure if we ever found Pismo. The next morning, Monday, we took the kids to Pismo Beach to play in the sand. It was pretty chilly in the AM. They found some shell fragments. My daughter found a live sand dollar! It was a real thrill for her to have found it. We didn't keep it though, obviously wouldn't be a good idea, and it was a live creature. That began a series of beach explorations. As we headed up the coast we stopped at many beaches on Monday. We saw Elephant seals, many starfish, and sea anemones. We passed Hearst Castle, we didn't feel the need to stop in this time. I did take a photograph of it from a far. We wanted to progress on to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. We saw photographs that promised a waterfall spilling out onto a beach of blue/green water. We had to do a small hike but we did see the waterfall. What a beautiful place that was! (SEE PHOTO) On Monday night we planned to spend the night in Monterey. There weren't hardly any rooms. We weren't being too picky, so we ended up in Watsonville about 30 minutes away. It was a bit stressful but we ended up at a really nice Holiday Inn Express. They even had my flavored creamer for my coffee in the morning! This morning we had to back track a bit to Monterey. My husband had heard the Aquarium there was one of the best in the country. I can now validate that, it was beautiful. I especially loved all the different types of jelly fish. I never realized how many there were. It was a photographers paradise, even my daughter begged to borrow the camera. She is needed a new camera, so she didn't have one with her this trip. The sea otters and penquins were so adorable. I could watch them for hours. Afterwards we walked around cannery row a bit. This area of Monterey had once been sardine factories. We enjoyed an early dinner, seafood of course. I had the blackened snapper which was wonderful. My husband had a tropical mahi mahi he enjoyed. The kids shared a pizza, their palates aren't quite ready for the fish. After we left Monterey we went to Santa Cruz. It only took us about an hour to get here. We came here for the boardwalk where they have roller coasters and all kinds of rides. We went down in the evening and stayed til closing. It's getting pretty late now, not even Tuesday anymore! Now today, Wednesday, we will head further north to San Francisco. We have hopes of seeing some Redwoods along the way. We have chosen to take Sequoia National park out of our plans this trip. We can always see it on a trip to Yosemite. We don't want to push our self to much and not have a enjoyable time. More of our adventure to come as time permits. I'll have to post the photos another time, I need to rest up for our next day of adventure.