Day 1 ~ Highway 1 Adventure

The day started bright and early (actually really dark with a 4:00 a.m. alarm) for our flight to San Francisco. You save more time if you fly into a northern CA airport and fly home out of a southern CA airport, but one-way airfare and car rentals are also much more expensive.

So we flew in, got the rental car, and headed south. Too bad it took us about 10 minutes to realize the car’s navigation system was set on “avoid highways.” I could see the highway just a few streets over and was so frustrated that it was taking us different ways. The urban area of San Ramon wasn’t originally a destination on the spreadsheet, but now I feel even more cultured.

We finally changed the settings and hopped on Highway 101 (a more central highway), so we could get to our southern-most stop quickly. That is definitely not the most scenic of routes, but I was amazed by all of the farms. No wonder so many Californians are healthy, the produce farms are everywhere. We saw miles and miles of carrots, artichokes, lettuce, celery, strawberries, peas, and pumpkins growing just off the highway. This truck passed us by. I have never in my life seen so many carrots.

We also made a quick pit stop off 101 to see Camp Roberts. My grandfather was in the military, and my Dad was born in the hospital there. I just knew that he would think it was sweet of me to take a picture of this important place in our family heritage. Well the military guard with the big ‘ol gun didn’t think it was that sweet.

We heard a “Hey! Hey! NO PICTURES!” being yelled at us, as he ran in our direction…with his big ‘ol gun. I made my “I’m harmless” face, we showed him that the picture didn’t reveal anything, and assured him we were just crazy Texans and not anyone to worry about. It worked, and he let us go free of any criminal charges.

So after driving 125 miles south, we were at our real starting point, Morro Bay.

This was probably my favorite hotel of the three we stayed in. The Anderson Inn is a small, charming, family-owned hotel with just eight rooms and is right on the bay of Morro Bay. The owners were so friendly and kind.

Here’s the view from our room of the bay with the famous Morro Rock.

That night we ate a wonderful family-owned restaurant right on the water, The Galley. I heart halibut! And feel free to ask Wade about the calamari. I’ll let him tell that story.


This is also the first of our three celebrity sightings on the trip (no other pictures but we also saw John Maddena and the star of the CAL rugby team). Do any of you recognize this guy?

That was Jack Lalanne many, many years ago. He’s now a 94-year-old adorable guy living in Morro Bay and has dinner at The Galley every Wednesday night. He looked amazing for his age and was very nice. After I took the picture of him and Wade, he was quick to ask if I wanted to have my picture taken with him as well. Cute!

After a trek to the Morro Rock and a delish dessert, I was about to pass out from exhaustion and was quick to get to bed while warming up with the cute little fireplace in the room. Unfortunately, this was definitely not the lounge around, sleep-in kind of trip.