Down the Coast

After our day of fun at Facebook, we got up the next morning and started on our way down the coast. The sun was shining and the ocean was sparkling. 

We made a few stops along the way to stretch our legs and explore. 

One stop was Cannery Row in Monterey. Made famous by Steinbeck (which was lost on the kids, but I found interesting), the town has done a great job of making a small downtown lively with historical detail. Good signage with great old photographs.

Oh, and a giant shark. Which the kids liked.

We continued down the road just a little bit to reach Carmel and we were so attracted by the landscape that we had to pile out of the van again. 

That's Pebble Beach golf course in the background there...

I don't know if you can tell from these blog posts so far, but we don't have much of a schedule or timetable on this trip. We are pretty much going where the wind takes us. 

We pulled in to Carpinteria to use the internet, but stumbled on an awesome beach and decided to stick around for a bit.

The kids were in the water in a shot.

It wasn't warm. They got in some volleyball.

And some Archie time...

Finny went for a little jog...

...basically, it was beach perfection.

While we were playing on the beach, we struck up a conversation with a couple of the local volleyball guys. They told us we couldn't come to Carpinteria without going for dinner to The Palms. Opened in 1912 (!), they have been letting people grill their own meats for over a hundred years! It's an institution.

Here's our steaks, just as they arrived at our table....Eric's comment was that they looked a little raw...

We sat right next to the grill. Those are our steaks at the back. I loved this place. It was a true small town experience.

And, to cap it all off, we heard there was a high school football game that night. So, we drove up to the high school and talked our way in to watch the first quarter. Carpinteria had to win to make the playoffs, so it was a big game.

The girls said the cheerleaders were too distracting. 

I was more distracted by the fact that I don't like or understand football. But the small town scene of high school football was pretty excellent.

We stumbled in to Carpinteria...I'm glad we did. It was a great little California beach town find...