Travel

Spotted in Old Towne in Orange County, California

After the studio tour we finished the day at Venice Beach: the skate park, the boardwalk, and the sun going down behind the palm trees. The Venice Beach skate park The Venice Beach boardwalk Sunset on the Venice boardwalk

Our last full day in Los Angeles started at the Griffith Observatory, with the Hollywood Sign across the hills, a planetarium show and the view over the city. In the afternoon we drove along Mulholland Drive, stopping at the Hollywood Bowl and Universal City overlooks, and finished with downtown lit up at night. The Hollywood Sign from Griffith Observatory ...

Our first full day in Los Angeles started with the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in Burbank: the backlot, the sound stages (where The Pitt was filming that day), and sets and props from Friends, The Big Bang Theory, the Batman films and Harry Potter. Afterwards we made a quick stop on Hollywood Boulevard before heading to Venice Beach (part 7). The Warner Bros. water tower ...

From Solvang we spent a few hours at Vega Vineyard & Farm outside Buellton. Back on the coast we stopped at Carpinteria State Beach, where natural tar seeps out of the rocks onto the sand, and caught the sunset at the Malibu Pier before arriving at our hotel in Los Angeles. Vega Vineyard & Farm, near Buellton ...

From Cambria we worked our way down the coast through the tiny town of Harmony, Cayucos and Morro Bay, where sea otters were floating in the kelp. Then it was inland to San Luis Obispo for a stop at Libertine Brewing, a luffa farm in Nipomo, and on to Solvang for the night. A ground squirrel on the Moonstone Beach boardwalk, Cambria ...

From San Francisco we drove south, passing the Apple campus and Steve Jobs’ old house where Apple got started. We picked up the PCH through Monterey and into Big Sur, making it as far as Nepenthe for a late lunch before our planned turnaround just before Lucia, where the road was still closed from a rockslide the year before. We looped back north to Monterey for the night. A low layer of clouds hung over the coast the whole way, obscuring most of the views, but it made for an amazing view at Nepenthe restaurant. The next morning we did the 17 Mile Drive out of Monterey, then cut inland and headed south to Hearst Castle (part 3!) ...

After the 17 Mile Drive we cut inland through the hills near Paso Robles and came back out to the coast at Hearst Castle. After the tour we stopped at the elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas, then drove a little further up the coast to Ragged Point before heading back down to Cambria for the night. Rolling hills near Paso Robles, on the way to the coast ...