San Fransisco Trip Day 0 & 1

Over the summer, Rob had a conference at Stanford University. We were excited to go back to that area since its been a while since we were there. (2016 Trip)

We had the last flight out of the day, which always makes me nervous. Thankfully, everything went smoothly. We did our standard, by getting to airport, parking, doing all the check in things, and then going to PF Chang’s before boarding our flight.

Our hotel for that night was near the airport, which we got to pretty late (our time).

The next morning we ate at the hotel, checked out and loaded the car, and got on the road. We had a couple days before the conference started for us to explore. Our goal for this day was to travel the coast and end up in Watsonville for the night. Here’s some of our stops along the way…

Pacifica – everyone had a dog-stopped and looked out -dark almost blank sand- cold and windy

We stopped at Safeway for drink and crackers.

Half Moon Bay State Beach – Dunes Beach We paid $10 for a day pass, which would enable us to go to any state park that day.

San Gregorio State Beach – Known as one of hte cleanest beaches in California and for good reason there were lots of people doing coast cleanup all along coast that day.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse is currently covered in scaffolding.

The views, although gloomy that day, were beautiful. We were trying to spot whales

There were some sea lions lounging on the rocks. You can see them here.

Shark Tooth Beach – The next stop was not one I had spotted on Google maps or saw signs for. In face as we were driving, I saw it and after I pondered it for a few minutes, told Rob he needed to turn around. So we did. There were several cars parked along the road and that’s what we did. Rob really wanted to go down to the beach and it would have been fun to check out the cave down there and get pics from that vantage point. However, the hike down is quite treacherous. We went about half way down. Snapped a few pics and headed back up.

Rob was excited to get to Santa Cruz Beach and walk around. However, after driving around for over an hour, we couldn’t find parking and we just gave up.

Our next stop was lunch, since we didn’t get to do that in Santa Cruz Beach.

Churchill and Beer was our lunch spot we ended up at. It was great! I got a Strawberry Kambucha and Rob had a Santa Cruz cider as well as some burgers that were yum.

The day was escaping us and we still had lots to see before it got dark. Next stop was Pacific Grove to hopefully see the Harbor Seals. We stopped at the tourist office at Pacific Grove to get help to make the best of the rest of our time that day. He gave us some great pointers and let us stay parked there. It was almost 5pm and they would be closing soon.

The Harbor Seals are typically right up on the beach near Stanford University Hopkins Marine Station. That day we only saw a couple of them swimming.

We continued walking down Ocean Boulevard to towards Lover’s Point.

One of the things of my list I really wanted to check out was Point Lobos State Preserve. We knew we wouldn’t have long there because they would close at 7. However, we got there, saw what we wanted to and left in time.

Our last destination before getting to the hotel was Carmel By The Sea. We walked around a little and went into a few shops before deciding we were starving!!

We ended up eating dinner there at Flaherty’s. I had the grilled fish tacos and Rob had the seafood linguine.

After dinner, we drove to Watsonville (about 30 minutes from Carmel By The Sea) and checked in to our room at the Hampton Inn (Really nice, new hotel).