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| The drive from LA |
Early morning Sunday the 27th of March, at about 9am LA time, we set out from Griffith Park on our coastal road trip. The ultimate destination was to be San Francisco, but we weren't gonna by-pass those wonderful stops along the amazing Californian coast on the way there. Besides, we wanted to see Hearst Castle and the Monterey Bay Aquarium pretty badly, so it was sorted that we would drive the four hours to Cambria, stay for a couple of nights, then set off for Carmel-By-The-Sea for a couple more nights before making our way to San Francisco. The full drive between Los Angeles to San Francisco would otherwise have been a whopping 9 hours!
Trader Joe's is our default pit-stop for roadtrips, and groceries while we're in LA – we love them for their in-house branded everything, from chocolate bars to frozen dinners to cinnamon raisin bread.
There's one at Los Feliz and we stock up on their pink lemonade, their version of the Arnold Palmer (green tea and lemonade. For the uninitiated, an Arnold Palmer is an iced tea-lemonade half and half), their wonderfully creamy body lotion and citrusy shower gel. Their ready-made wraps are also divine a
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| Trader Joe's pink lemonade, with elderberry juice |
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| On our way to Camarillo Premium Outlets |
Camarillo Premium Outlets (
www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet.asp?id=20) were on our way, and if it's one thing that we've not passed up on during the Grand Plan so far, it's a nose-dive into any good premium outlet that comes our way. Clifford practically goes ape shit when he sees that famous swoosh looming in the distance.
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| My new trusty jacket |
But this time, it was me who was getting my credit card swiped – at The North Face, for an awesome tri-weather jacket. It was colder than we had thought it would be in LA, and we were pretty sure that things could only get worse as we drove up north. It's a pretty cool jacket and it's so-called "tri-weather" because it's made of two layers, securely zipped and buttoned together. Wear them both and honestly it could keep out any amount of cold wind and rain in the most freezy temperatures; or just the outer trench layer for not-too-cold rainy days and the puffy thermal inner layer on dry windy days. My only regret is that I didn't come across it any earlier on the trip – this jacket became the most important item in my suitcase after my jeans.
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| A quick touristy stop to take the pre-requisite "we're on a road trip" picture |
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| Funny how pretty even wild grass can be when you're on the Grand Plan |
Claudia and Morgan had recommended we have lunch at Bayside Café at Morro Bay, on our way to Cambria. After a slight misdirection, we stopped wrongly at a hotel. That Garmin of ours can't always be trusted. It was a nice little stroll, though, and since it was absolutely deserted, I got to take pictures of the plants and flowers like an old male Japanese tourist.
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| This is NOT where we were meant to be, but we saw some lovely flowers anyway |
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| The singing pansy from Disney's Alice In Wonderland – almost! |
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| The bay that learnt the name to Bayside Café |
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| Marcus doppleganger |
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| Bayside Café |
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| California Chowder, a mixture of clam chowder and spicy green chile soup |
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| Scrumptiously fresh fish & chips | | | | | | | |
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| Crabcake sandwich with coleslaw |
Well, we DID finally find Bayside Café (www.baysidecafe.com) and were sure glad we didn't give up and pike out for something more convenient and pedestrian for lunch. Bayside Café is a charming little shack set right across from the water, which we presume was Morro Bay, with a great view of the docked boats bobbing on the calm water. Now, it really felt like we were on vacation – a good, proper grown-up vacation like two adults instead of kids. A glass of chilled white wine in a sun-drenched seaside seafood hut in the middle of the day will impart that feeling, no doubt. Cliff had the fresh fish of the day, served lightly battered and with fries, and a big mug of beer. I had the crabcake sandwich ($12.25), made from rock crab, which came with some salady veggies and a nice, mild vinegary coleslaw. Cliff also had the California Chowder, which is essentially a gorgeously thick (but not too rich) clam chowder with a bit of spicy green chile soup dolloped in the middle. It kinda reminded me of the black-and-white contrast of that almond cream with black sesame paste dessert we get back home.
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| Our upgraded ride for the month |
Our
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| Cambria Pines Inn |
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| Two beds are better than none |
Filled with a seafood lunch, we drove on reached our destination for the next two nights – Cambria Pines Inn, room 212. We had booked it just a few days before online and were stuck with two single beds because we opted for the lower-priced option. Still, it was fine – we used one bed to sleep in at night, and the other as tv/surfing/reading central. The room was spotlessly clean, like many affordable accommodations in the States, but well-worn and thread bare in some places. We had a neat little wood-burning fireplace which swallows up packaged mini logs, but only the first log was free, and subsequent logs had to be purchased for about $4 a piece from the housekeeping or reception. And at the rate of about a log per couple of hours, it was expensive, and not to mention tedious, to keep warm the whole night. So we shivered under the sheets. The fluffy filling in the pillows kept falling out too, so by the end of an afternoon/evening of lazing around in bed, it was like a frosty the snowman Christmas centrepiece had been murdered by the side of our bed.
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| The gado gado-like Tofu Satay |
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| Vietnamese BBQ Pork |
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| Stirfried Noodles with Veggies and Beef |
Cambria is a tiny seaside town with basically just one main street, called...you guessed it, Main Street, with a few other commercial roads leading from it . While flicking through the little map left in our room, and on Tripadvisor, we were convinced that the restaurants that most visitors fallback on were the stalwarts like The Sow's Ear Café, Black Cat Bistro, Linn's Fruit Bin Restaurant and Moonstone Beach Bar & Grill. After a month of travelling, the Asian in me felt like a good soy fix, and we made a reservation at Wild Ginger (2380 Main Street, www.wildgingercambria.com), the one and only Asian restaurant in Cambria. Apparently, the chef owner Deborah Mok was from Singapore, and we were curious what Singaporean food in the middle of Cambria would be like, though their tiny ad in the Cambria tourist map said "Asian, Pacific Rim and Global Cuisine".
It turned out to be a tiny place, with not more than 5 tables indoors, and perhaps a few alfresco ones, and we took a high table right by the cash register. I had the Stirfried Noodles with fresh Veggies and Beef – something from the chalkboard that night. Cliff had the Vietnamese BBQ Pork ($16), which was served on rice noodles and came with the requisite Vietnamese veggies, and we shared the Tofu Satay ($8), a dish reminiscent of gado gado, made up of primarily fried tofu cubes, sauteed spinach and a peanut sauce. Essentially Westernised Asian food, but hey, I'm not complaining. I love Asian takeouts in America, and this was a fresh, healthy version of the msg-laden chow from those places. Plus, the meal really hit the spot when it came to an Asian meal in the middle of Caucasian land. And on a brisk, Spring night, that's really all you need before retiring in front of a not-so-functional (it didn't warm the room very much), but very inspiring fire.
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| The fireplace at room 212 |
