The Official Epic Story of Us-California Adventure Part 2

I’m back with episode two of our California vacation! When we left off on the last episode, it was Friday and we had just hit up Costco in Seaside, California for some needed supplies – namely bottled water! I can’t stress this enough – if you are going on a lengthy vacation – go to Costco and buy water! You will save a TON of money! (That is if you have a Costco membership, otherwise Target, Walmart, or any supermarket would definitely save you $$!) Anyway, now back to the vacation details!

Day 4: Saturday

We started Saturday by grabbing breakfast at The Butter House in Seaside. The wait was long, but well worth it! I would definitely recommend checking in on Yelp well in advance of when you want to eat breakfast!

Our adventure for Saturday was whale watching in Monterey Bay. While we were at breakfast, I received an email informing us that the sea was pretty rough and we should take meds for motion sickness before boarding the boat. We headed into Monterey, checked out the harbor area, sea lions, shops, etc., took our Bonine, and waited to board the boat.

We realized what they meant by rough seas as soon as we exited the harbor area. Waves were 6 to 8 feet. Almost immediately I began to feel nauseous, though as long as I looked at the horizon, I was ok. That was not the case for one of our children. She ended up needing to stand at the rear of the boat with Brian. They were on the spray side which meant they were soaked almost immediately. The ride to where the whales were that day took well over an hour. By the time they spotted whales, one daughter was happy to see them, the other was feeding them, so to speak. I stayed with the happy kid and watched a mama whale and her calf, while Brian was on the other side of the boat with the sick kiddo. Standing was challenging as the sea was so rough we were bouncing the whole time and I was only able to snap a few photos. Trust me…this one is of a whale spout.

The whales moved so the boat was turned – Brian and I stayed where we were and the girls switched places. I got the sick one, and Brian got the one that was feeling really queasy, but excited to see whales. Finally it was time to head back to the harbor. My poor, sick girl was worn out and completely soaked and freezing. Thankfully the ride back to the harbor was much smoother than the ride to the whales, but it honestly felt like it took forever as I held onto a shivering, exhausted kid. We grabbed her some sweatpants in one of the souvenir shops and headed for the car. Unfortunately for her, Saturday’s drive was our longest of the trip – three plus hours to get to our stop for the night. It was another scenic drive, but long and miserable after the whale watching ordeal. We were hoping to hit the Pacific Coastal Highway for a bit of the trip, but it was closed just before Big Sur due to flooding – and with one kid feeling so crappy, we opted to hit the main roads. Even on the freeway, the trip was beautiful! One of the things we found so mesmerizing about our entire trip is the view of the ocean from the freeway. We don’t have 6 lane highways next to the Atlantic Ocean because of hurricanes.

Our hotel for Saturday night was picked literally by proximity – our goal was to be in Los Angeles on Sunday, so we took the distance from Monterey to LA, cut it in half and found a reasonably priced hotel in the middle. We stayed in Lompoc which is best known for being the home of Vandenburg Space Force Base.

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Lompoc. Again, we were amazed by the friendliness we experienced with all the staff! Unless you have been witness to it, its hard to describe the genuine friendliness of everyone we encountered in California. By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was well after 9. We were all exhausted, and the seasick one was still feeling awful. We grabbed some snacks from the hotel lobby and quickly hit the sack. 

Day 5: Sunday

On the way into the hotel Saturday night, I noticed a shop across the road called “Foster’s Donuts” – my maiden name is Foster, so I decided it was a sign we needed to visit Sunday morning. Things we could have easily scratched from the trip: whale watching and Foster’s Donuts.

We ended up at Starbucks and again, the staff was SO NICE. I know I keep saying this, but its such a stark difference from the East Coast. After breakfast, we hit the road heading south. While we were staying in Hollywood, we were heading a little farther south beyond LA to meet up with friends for dinner. We passed by all the coastal towns we’ve heard about from TV shows: Santa Barbara, Santa Clarita, and Ventura among others.

The Sunday drive was the most stressful of the travels – LA traffic is no joke even on a Sunday!

We arrived in Huntington Beach early and were excited to finally dip our toes into the Pacific Ocean. For those not familiar, I would compare Huntington Beach to Ocean City, MD – a fun, loud beach town with tons of shops, bars, and restaurants. We were all thrilled to be able to catch up with our friends Shari and Taylor. We haven’t seen them since they moved to California just before the pandemic. Brian was a great sport about the whole evening, I even caught him in complete girl dad mode.

As expected, we chatted for hours longer than planned then suffered through the most stressful traffic to get back to our hotel in Hollywood. We stayed at the Loews Hollywood Hotel complete with a view of the Hollywood sign – which we learned can only be seen during the day. There are no lights on the sign despite what you see on TV.

Brian and I had stayed at the Loews Miami Beach hotel earlier this year and loved it. The Hollywood Hotel wasn’t quite as nice as the Miami hotel, but the people were great! Our room was nice, but it definitely showed signs of age. We found Friends and called it an early night since we had an early start the next morning.

And that is where we will leave it for today! Coming soon…the Warner Bros studio tour, an intentional hike in the Hollywood Hills, and one completely unintentional hill trek.