4xFoorOffroad
Active member
My wife wanted to go somewhere new for Thanksgiving and was thinking of Sequoia NP. From LA it's 5 hours and the short days and coldish weather didn't seem like a great combination for a short tree peeping trip.
Although my wife had been to the central coast once before during COVID, it was a straight shot to Big Sur and a night sleeping in my truck in the rain. She did not take away many good memories from that, so I figured we'd go back and I'd make it a wife-oriented tour of some of the places I hung out at when I was living in the central coast.
Disclaimer - 0 dirt mile trip.
The plan was to go on Thanksgiving day (and miss a bunch of traffic). My wife said she wanted another chance to try and drive a manual so I was thinking we'd go to the dunes to do that. Since my truck is the only manual we have running right now, in usual fashion I decided to completely redo the suspension while chasing a highway speed vibration in the steering wheel a right before we left.
After installing new(er) lowers, uppers, trans mount, and front hubs that I had lying around or just bought, the steering wheel was still vibrating between 55-65 so we had to take her car.
With only a slowdown at the 405/101 interchange, we finally got out of LA. It'd been 5 years since I had been further north than Camarillo.
The first night we stayed in Shell Beach at one of the bougier hotels I've ever stayed in, but not one of the most expensive in Shell. There is actually ocean access along Shell Beach road so you could enjoy the same view in front of the hotels, grab a drink at one of the hotel bars, and sit at one of their gas-fire pits for free and go back to the dunes after sunset. That's what we planned on doing next time while we were walking around that night.
View from our hotel room.
View from our lodgings on our last visit.
View of our lodgings on our last visit.
Our plan was to go from south to north throughout the trip so I drove down to Pismo for breakfast. As obvious of a choice as it is, my wife had been on a random clam chowder kick lately so I had her get breakfast at the Splash Cafe. Here you'll see I expertly nailed the focus on a random lady through the window in this pic...
After that we walked over to Old West Cinnamon Rolls for Breakfast #2
Being well fortified from breakfast #1 and #2, we went down to go walking around the dunes. It's actually not too far to walk if you're in Pismo, we walked from the Monarch Butterfly trail up to Pismo and then back down to Oceano in 3 hours.
Seeing Sky River RV over by the Monarch Trial reminded me of these old commercials they had on local access TV back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU80DDBt5ZA
We found a place I used to go to around 20 years ago when I worked in construciton down in the area.
Back then the burritos were $2.20 on the lunch special menu.
We got back in her car and headed up north to Smuggler's Cave and it was super crowded, it being Black Friday, but she liked it anyway.
She couldn't believe people would actually be naked on the beach down in Pirate's Cove and so I had to zoom in on a picture to prove it - things like that don't happen where she's from. I tried to de-res the pic so it's PG-13...
After, it was nearing sunset so we went to Avila Bay and ate the burritos we got at La Tapatia. It's a nice low-key area if the Pismo crowds aren't your thing.
There's a restaurant named Fat Cats next to where we're parked here at the end of Avila Bay Drive that has some pretty cool fat cat pictures people have given them over the past 25+ years.
From there we went to SLO for cheaper hotel prices. My wife wasn't feeling to hot, so we drove down to have her take a short tour of some spots I used to hang out at and work.
The mission was all decked out for Christmas so there's a lot of family photo opportunity stuff there.
Another cool old spot is the Fremont Movie Theater built in 1941. I worked there 20ish years ago and three small theaters used to be next door to it known as the "Mission Theater." The original plaster continues to fall just like 20 years ago when I worked there and they still only hire the most expert craftsmen to do their repairs just like when I was there too.
They actually do concerts and stand up there now - I remember opening night of Episode 3 of Star Wars when there were people lined up for 24 hours and it was cash only back then in that tiny ticket booth.
Although my wife had been to the central coast once before during COVID, it was a straight shot to Big Sur and a night sleeping in my truck in the rain. She did not take away many good memories from that, so I figured we'd go back and I'd make it a wife-oriented tour of some of the places I hung out at when I was living in the central coast.
Disclaimer - 0 dirt mile trip.
The plan was to go on Thanksgiving day (and miss a bunch of traffic). My wife said she wanted another chance to try and drive a manual so I was thinking we'd go to the dunes to do that. Since my truck is the only manual we have running right now, in usual fashion I decided to completely redo the suspension while chasing a highway speed vibration in the steering wheel a right before we left.
After installing new(er) lowers, uppers, trans mount, and front hubs that I had lying around or just bought, the steering wheel was still vibrating between 55-65 so we had to take her car.
With only a slowdown at the 405/101 interchange, we finally got out of LA. It'd been 5 years since I had been further north than Camarillo.
The first night we stayed in Shell Beach at one of the bougier hotels I've ever stayed in, but not one of the most expensive in Shell. There is actually ocean access along Shell Beach road so you could enjoy the same view in front of the hotels, grab a drink at one of the hotel bars, and sit at one of their gas-fire pits for free and go back to the dunes after sunset. That's what we planned on doing next time while we were walking around that night.
View from our hotel room.
View from our lodgings on our last visit.
View of our lodgings on our last visit.
Our plan was to go from south to north throughout the trip so I drove down to Pismo for breakfast. As obvious of a choice as it is, my wife had been on a random clam chowder kick lately so I had her get breakfast at the Splash Cafe. Here you'll see I expertly nailed the focus on a random lady through the window in this pic...
After that we walked over to Old West Cinnamon Rolls for Breakfast #2
Being well fortified from breakfast #1 and #2, we went down to go walking around the dunes. It's actually not too far to walk if you're in Pismo, we walked from the Monarch Butterfly trail up to Pismo and then back down to Oceano in 3 hours.
Seeing Sky River RV over by the Monarch Trial reminded me of these old commercials they had on local access TV back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU80DDBt5ZA
We found a place I used to go to around 20 years ago when I worked in construciton down in the area.
Back then the burritos were $2.20 on the lunch special menu.
We got back in her car and headed up north to Smuggler's Cave and it was super crowded, it being Black Friday, but she liked it anyway.
She couldn't believe people would actually be naked on the beach down in Pirate's Cove and so I had to zoom in on a picture to prove it - things like that don't happen where she's from. I tried to de-res the pic so it's PG-13...
After, it was nearing sunset so we went to Avila Bay and ate the burritos we got at La Tapatia. It's a nice low-key area if the Pismo crowds aren't your thing.
There's a restaurant named Fat Cats next to where we're parked here at the end of Avila Bay Drive that has some pretty cool fat cat pictures people have given them over the past 25+ years.
From there we went to SLO for cheaper hotel prices. My wife wasn't feeling to hot, so we drove down to have her take a short tour of some spots I used to hang out at and work.
The mission was all decked out for Christmas so there's a lot of family photo opportunity stuff there.
Another cool old spot is the Fremont Movie Theater built in 1941. I worked there 20ish years ago and three small theaters used to be next door to it known as the "Mission Theater." The original plaster continues to fall just like 20 years ago when I worked there and they still only hire the most expert craftsmen to do their repairs just like when I was there too.
They actually do concerts and stand up there now - I remember opening night of Episode 3 of Star Wars when there were people lined up for 24 hours and it was cash only back then in that tiny ticket booth.
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