For the love of road trips, part 4

I should really just call these posts California road trips. Although I have done a lot of road trips outside the west coast, this year has been all about California. That’s okay, because I really like California.

I was home for eight weeks, just enough time to experience a freak April snowstorm 😮, finally close on our Ojai house, pack up a U-Haul with furniture, and then get back on the road again.

Our back garden on April 11, 2022. Not making my heart grow fonder, Portland!

All those beautiful magnolia buds being weighed down by wet, sloppy snow, in April, in a town that doesn’t get much winter snow, much less spring snow. Ugh!

The Peacemaker drove the U-Haul, thankfully! It was a quick trip back down to Ojai. That would be the top of Mt. Shasta in Northern California there in the background.

The Peacemaker and I were in Ojai for seven weeks. We spent the entire time working on our little mid century fixer, and checking out all the great food spots in Ventura County. I’m really quite impressed with what we accomplished in a short period of time, which included a lot of cleaning, painting, and putting together Ikea furniture. This was a budget fixer, for sure. I learned that The Peacemaker is a whiz with a paint sprayer. He also has the kind of brain that quickly understands Ikea instructions, yay for me!

Kitchen Before/After. The wood before was a cherry wood stained veneer. We liquid stripped the shiny finish off, primed them, and double coated with high quality Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray. I painted the floors BM Galapagos Turquoise. The kitchen also got a new range, sink, hardware, and solid maple butcher-block island top that we special ordered. It arrived two days before we headed home. Countertops were a dated granite, which we replaced with a beautiful solid quartz (the countertops were all a huge splurge requested by The Peacemaker). He was so cute… didn’t want to leave his new kitchen behind!

Also really happy with how the living area turned out! We had a lot of fun!

The Farmer & The Cook. Vegetarian Mexican fare in Ojai.

So mid June we were back on the road heading north, again! The Ojai house is rented to a sweet little family and although we miss it, we knew it was going to be a rental, and it’s in good hands!

So can anyone guess our first stop after departing Ojai? If you guessed Santa Cruz, you win!

But, The Peacemaker wanted to do the Highway 1 route this time. Honestly, it’s not my favorite. I’ve done it before, but never with The Peacemaker. Its a slog. It’s a long drive up from Ojai, and a bit dicey in areas once you get near Big Sur. Mid-June the road got pretty crowded as did all the stopping points and that is definitely not The Peacemaker’s “thing.” I doubt he’ll want to do it again, but now he can say, he’s done it. We passed Esalen, the infamous spot from mine and Blue Eyes attempt at “finding happiness” all those years ago. Road trip from Hell and Road trip from Hell 2

We did stop at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park recreation area and took a walk out for a view of the waterfall.

While on our drive we happened to be texting with The Pragmatist and he recommended their favorite place (although they live in Brooklyn, his girlfriend is from Silicon Valley) for Cioppino, Phil’s Fish Market, in the itty bitty “town” of Moss Landing, CA. OMG this stuff is amazing! The freshest of seafood in a perfect rich Italian style broth. Thank you San Francisco for this amazing food concoction!

We made it to Santa Cruz in time to take a walk to the amusement park at sunset.

We couldn’t leave SC without stopping at our favorite sandwich shop, Zoccoli’s. We grabbed lunch and decided to drive into Los Gatos (the southwest tip of Silicon Valley), for a picnic.