Road Trip to Sea Ranch

A couple of weeks ago, my friends, Kate and Alex, rented a house in Sea Ranch for their birthdays, and my boyfriend, Dev, and I were fortunate enough to be included in the festivities, amongst some of our other dear friends. We road tripped up the California coast from Encinitas to Sea Ranch and back, making a few stops along the way to check waves, hike, and eat really good food. It was truly such a lovely, perfect week.

Day 1

Ventura —-> Los Olivos —-> Pismo —-> San Luis Obispo —-> Cayucos

The first leg of my trip was technically Encinitas —-> Ventura, which I did the night before via train. Dev had been working in Ventura that week, so I met him there (highly recommend taking the Surfliner up and down the coast- such a fun changeup). That first morning, Dev and I got breakfast at an old diner we love and then met Kate and Alex at C Street for a surf. From there, we made our way up and over to Los Olivos and had suuuuuch a good lunch at Mattei’s Tavern (we got the hot tuna sandwich and a few salads, and they even gave us complimentary sparkling wine!). The whole town is super cute but very hot, so after a little walkabout, we high-tailed it back to the coast. Pismo was completely fogged in when we got there, but we walked down through the dunes to the beach, and Dev and I took a dip anyway (freezing, but worth it). Kate and Alex were staying the night in San Luis Obispo, so we stopped there too for gas and groceries before finding a camp spot up in the hills above Cayucos.

Day 2

Morro Bay —-> Cambria —-> San Simeon —-> Monterey —-> Año Nuevo

We woke up on top of a hill in a cloud of mist and realized we were out of water to make coffee with, so we headed back down into town, and then to explore a beach with a shipwreck just off of it. Our friends wanted to surf Morro Bay, so we backtracked a bit and met them there. There were so many otters frolicking very close to shore right by the Rock! A guy in the parking lot recommended driving through Cambria to get lunch at a taco truck there, so we did that and walked around a bit (very cute, Old California town vibe). Dev and I also stopped right before Cambria to explore a trail that went past a cool old house and eventually led to the beach, but we didn’t get too far. After lunch, we drove up to see the elephant seals on the beach in San Simeon, then back down and over to the 101 (would have loved to have kept going up through Big Sur, but the 1 is still closed just north of Lucia, and you can’t get all the way through right now). Taking the 101 through the Salinas Valley always reminds me of Steinbeck though, and Dev and I even put on To a God Unknown as an audiobook to enhance the mood. Again, it was so hot inland (Dev has an old van that’s air conditioning doesn’t work) and we couldn’t wait to get back over to the coast to jump in the water, only for Monterey to look and feel like winter once we pulled in. We stopped in Pacific Grove near the lighthouse for a walk along the shore and through the tide pools, and to watch more otters floating out in a kelp bed. From there, we made our way up through Santa Cruz to Año Nuevo, where we made dinner and camped for the night.

Day 3

Año Nuevo —-> San Francisco —-> Lagunitas —-> Sea Ranch

This morning we made ourselves coffee and then went for a lovely walk down a trail that led to a very witchy circle of trees and old stumps, right at the edge of a bluff overlooking the water. Dev and I went for another cold plunge dip and gathered some super cool hole-y rocks that would be perfect as candlestick holders to give Kate and Alex as birthday presents. Afterwards, we kept driving up the 1, past the Pigeon Point lighthouse (glorious in spring, when the grass is green and the wildflowers are blooming around it), and aimed to make it to San Francisco by lunch time. We succeeded, stopping first to check the waves in Ocean Beach, before aimlessly stumbling around the Outer Sunset, looking for a good Chinese spot. We finally decided to walk into a barbecue tea house on a corner with roasted ducks hanging in the window. There was hot food already made that could be taken to-go, which is what we got, realizing after the fact that everyone sitting down around us had ordered plates off the actual menu that looked insanely good (ya live and ya learn). After lunch, we pit stopped at the Sutro Baths, which I’d never heard of/seen, and were interesting to read about afterwards, and then drove over the Golden Gate (I love it every time), through the rainbow tunnel, up through Marin and San Rafael, and back over west along a winding road through the redwoods. There was a beautiful little creek near Lagunitas that we swam in and sunned at (made me feel like a little woodland fairy). We found our way back to the 1 near Point Reyes Station, which took us around the Tomales Bay, and up the coast again, to our final destination- Sea Ranch!

Day 4

Sea Ranch

Our first morning in Sea Ranch, we all went to Pebble Beach to surf, swim, and lay out, and it was so warm and lovely. This is a big beach right next to the Sea Ranch Lodge, where we got coffees and snacks and explored the shop (they had really cute homemade jam and our friend, Kat, got a cool blue and white checkered towel here too). Later on in the day, Dev and I went for a little walk through the forest behind our house and then drove up to Gualala to get some things from the Surf Market.

Day 5

Sea Ranch

This morning was spent beach combing at Shell Beach (found lots of tiny, shiny abalone fragments!). In the afternoon, a few of us found a lovely little creek spot up in the woods that we swam and sunned at until it was time to get ready for the girls’ birthday dinner back down at The Lodge. These days were slow and lovely and sunny and exactly what we all had hoped they would be, I think.

Day 6

Sea Ranch —-> Valley Ford —-> Santa Cruz

Our final morning was spent drinking coffee and working on a puzzle by the fire before leaving the house to explore classic Sea Ranch sites like Condominium 1, the Chapel, and the rec centers. The Chapel is amazing and like a mermaid house on land. I found it so inspiring. We packed up and left that afternoon, swinging through Valley Ford to eat dinner at an insane Italian restaurant called Dinucci’s (great vibe). We made it all the way down to Santa Cruz and stayed there with a friend of Dev’s for the night.

Day 7

Santa Cruz —-> Atescadero —-> Encinitas

Dev’s friend that we stayed with lives on the East Side of Santa Cruz, so we walked to get coffee and then down to the water near Pleasure Point in the morning. On our way out of town, we stopped at a to-go sushi spot and got a couple of rolls, which were pretty good. We put the Steinbeck book on again and mentally prepared ourselves to take the 101 (the hotter and less scenic route) all the way back down to Encinitas, so that we could make it home by nighttime. We made one stop in Atescadero, just past Paso Robles, at a little Mexican market for tacos and Pepsis in the bottle. It was 102 degrees, and the market didn’t have air-conditioning either, but I think these were some of the best tacos I’ve ever had. The moonrise over Gaviota was insane, as it was a day away from being full. We did indeed make it home that night around midnight, exhausted, but not too tired to make a pot of Annie’s mac and cheese before crawling into bed.