California First Class - Day 8 San Francisco

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Day 7

Day 8 - San Francisco (Thursday 23rd May 2013)

After a week in the states this was the start of our Pacific coast highway adventure and the drive that was the central plan for this trip. The morning was delayed by a lie in and we headed to Lori's Diner that we had seen the previous morning, but as we entered we asked about Soya milk so that Celia could have a coffee (and probably some oatmeal) but were told they did not do Soya, so we switched back to Sears Fine Foods (which is owned by the same group) as we had enjoyed the breakfast there so much the previous day.

After being fed we decided to head back to the hotel and head off for the drive, this car we were picking up at the Airport so after checking out we got the Hotel to arrange a town car and explained to the driver to take us to the Avis rental car area rather than any of the actual terminals.

The queues are the airport were horrendous and as all the hire companies are in teh same building it was a mass of humanity in there all trying to get a car. We were offered an upgrade to a Jeep with a hard roof, but declined as it sounded like if we had the roof off we would have nowhere to put luggage as we needed to carry the roof. So we were back with the Mustang equivalent as this time it would be a Chevrolet. Paperwork finally done we headed into the garage to find our car, it was a lovely white hard top and the boot looked a good size, till we started to work out how to drop the roof and then the boot would only contain a briefcase, so that was never going to work as we had 2 large wheeled suitcases, a large duffel-bag and 2 carry on bags. So I started to head back to the office space, but had a helpful Avis employee ask what was wrong and we showed him the bags and the car and explained that we had managed to get all this luggage (well almost - as we did have a small bit of extra shopping) into a Mustang. He said to wait a minute and headed off with the paperwork, returning a few minutes later with a blue mustang, RESULT. So finally we loaded in our bags and headed out the airport car park and headed south.

We stopped in Palo Alto as Celia had been there a couple of weeks previously whilst visiting Google and it had been a pretty neighbourhood. We parked up at the start of the main shopping street and had a wander, It is very pretty but the star find was a shop called Rocket Fizz, which is a US version of Cybercandy or American Soda so selling stranger sweets and soda, its weird to see Cadburys and other UK chocolates as obscure but I did pick up some Wonka Kazoozles which are my favourite. Although it was midday due to the late breakfast, we just grabbed some fruit as a snack and decided to carry on to Santa Cruz for lunch.

We left Palo Alto and took the 82 past Stanford University, going up with the 85 and then onto the 17 for the route through the mountains.
By the time we goto the Santa Cruz it was 3pm as the drive had been a bit longer than expected but we managed to find some parking and tried to find somewhere to eat, heading towards the beach front.



We finally found a small cafe, South Beach pizza company where we could get some food, celia had a nice salad and I had a burger and fries. Fed and watered we headed back to the car and started the drive down Highway 1 to Monterey, for this leg we had the top down, which at the start when we were stuck in traffic felt like a good idea, but as we got closer to Monterey and the speeds went up it got very cold with the sea breeze.

We arrived at Monterey and found our hotel the Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa, and wow this was luxury, we drove into the car port and they took the luggage and valet parked the hotel. We knew we had splashed out on this hotel and the room was huge, but the view was the main selling point.



we almost tried to work out if we could stay here for a second night, but the route had been picked out and this was 1 of two single night stays so we didn't really unpack. We did just book dinner in the restaurant and had a wonder down Cannery Row as the shops were closing till it was time for dinner.



It was interesting to see how this area had redeveloped itself and the strange juxtaposition between the tacky stores on the land side and some very posh hotels on the water side of the road. It was strange that although we had only been driving most the day and had a lie in we were shattered and we knew that tomorrows drive was the longest of the trip, so we had arranged a 7:30 dinner.

We were given window seats and were able to spot a couple of dolphins playing in the bay whilst we waited for our food.



Celia had some lobster and I had some Shrimp, the food was great but the shows from the dolphins was the star of the evening.

Day 9

[Hannikins]

lovely day, that view from the restaurant with the dolphins looks magical

[mariechez]

Enjoying reading about your trip, thank you.

[chrisdebl]

We stayed at this hotel, it is beautiful isn't it? I bet it was amazing watching dolphins while having your dinner wow x

Deb

[Ycryan]

The dolphins look amazing.