On the Road Again

We got up and headed out in our rental car by 9 a.m.  We are heading up the coast towards San Francisco.  This first night we will spend in San Simeon. Our first stop today was in Santa Barbara for an early lunch.  We ate at La Super-rica Taqueria, which comes highly recommended by Julia Child, who said it is one of her favorite places to eat.  (Julia Child died in 2004 so she hasn't eaten there for at least 19 years.) There is only street parking at Super-Rica and it is hard to come by.  The line goes out the door.  Gayle waited in line while I found parking.  

We ordered a vegetarian tamale, a beef taco and their special chips covered in sauce.  

The challenge at Super-Rica is to figure out your desired hot sauce level.  Seating is in a little boxy, covered porch area.  This is not a place you go for a view.  We wolfed down our food and headed on toward adventure.

The weather today was brisk but beautiful.  There were fluffy clouds in the sky and snow on the distant mountains.  We soaked in the view of mountains and ocean and we traveled up highway 1.  My mechanic called to tell me that the problem with my car was that it blew a super fuse related to my hybrid batteries....or something like that.  I don't speak cars.  The cost will be $1200.  I was grateful I don't have to replace the hybrid batteries.  

We got off the highway at Morro Bay.  Gayle had never been there and my description of Morro Rock did not prepare her for the enormity of it.  We stood at the harbor, listening to barking sea lions until the wind got to be too much.

I have a favorite store in Morro Bay -- the Garden Gallery.  I don't go to Morro Bay without stopping in to admire their incredible cactus plants, ceramic pots, greeting cards, etc.  I have a cactus shaped like a heart I got last time I went there.  I put it in a ceramic pot I bought from two trips ago when I stopped at the Garden Gallery.  Today I only bought a couple cards.

We headed to Moonstone Beach at Cambria.  We hauled our broken down bodies to the beach in search of moonstones. 

Then we sat on the driftwood and admired our findings.

Back on the road we drove the few remaining miles to San Simeon.  We are spending the night at the Pacific Coast Roadhouse, purchased with Gayle's points.  We got settled in and started looking at our plans for tomorrow.  Gayle realized that the reservation she made for Hearst Castle is actually for Wednesday, not tomorrow.  She quickly called them and they said they could change her ticket to tomorrow at 1 p.m.  After getting settled we crossed the highway to eat at the Cavalier -- the only restaurant in San Simeon that promises a view.  We were hoping for a sunset view but a building blocked the sun.  We ate our $20 burgers, recounted family stories and giggled.

When we got back to the room I discovered that there was no remote for the TV and no soap in the bathroom.  Well, that is not completely accurate. The used soap from the traveler before us was still here...complete with pubic hair.  I headed down to the office.  

I told the woman at the desk that our room had no remote and no soap,  She said, "Other than that, how is your stay going?"  She couldn't get hold of the man who could bring us a remote.  It took her 10 minutes to locate the soap. She told me they would remedy the remote issue very quickly and I headed back to our room.  A half hour later she called our room phone and asked if we wanted to change rooms.  We declined.  Another 15 minutes went by and she called again to say she had found a remote and put new batteries in it.  All we needed to do was pair it.  We messed with the TV for 10 minutes before we realized that the remote was for a Samsung TV and the remote is for an LG.  

But perseverance won out and we figured out how to manually control the TV only to discover that there wasn't anything on that we could tolerate.