<p>Definitely take Highway 1 south from Monterrey. It’s a gorgeous drive. You can see Hearst Castle towards the end of the day…Tour #2 is best, imo, but Tour #1 provides the context for it (reservations recommended)…spending the night (or two) in Cambria, one of my most favorite places in California. (Dinner recs: The Sow’s Ear, The Black Cat, or drive across the foothills to Templeton and go to McPhee’s Grill. Lunch: The Tea Cozy)</p>
<p>Continuing south, Solvang is very kitschy but a lot of folks like it and on the four-mile or so road from 101 to the town you pass by an ostrich farm(!). If you go to the last major N/S street in Solvang and turn right, on the left is a big parking lot behind which is the Santa Ynez mission, which you’d miss completely unless you knew it was there or spotted a very small sign. </p>
<p>Less than half a mile from 101 on the way to Solvang is The Hitching Post, a restaurant featured in the movie “Sideways” and it’s outstanding for steaks, wine, etc. The mushrooms marinated in cabernet are my favorite side dish.</p>
<p>For missions, I definitely like the Santa Barbara though the San Buenaventura is interesting in a low-key kind of way. Lunch in Santa Barbara: the Altamirano, 422 N. Milpas. They have a couple of very good, very unusual kinds of tacos, one with a spinach/cheese filling, the other I forget its name but is yummy.</p>
<p>Note: traffic from Santa Barbara south to Ventura can seem disproportionately “sticky” or stop-and-go…patience is advised and it’s one area that I try to avoid, not always successful, on a late Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p>If you have time when in LA, going to the Getty Villa, a recreation of a Roman Villa from Pompeii and which houses its antiquities collection, is a treat. Again, reservations recommended. </p>
<p>Coming down to my neck of the woods, Santa Monica, the Santa Monica pier with its Ferris wheel and roller coaster are common attractions and you can do worse than strolling down the three-block pedestrian mall of the Third Street Promenade, complete with topiary dinosaur fountains, street performers, and tourists gawking at the locals and vice versa. (You can always tell the Midwesterners out for the Rose Bowl because the men are wearing Bermuda shorts in cool overcast weather.)</p>
<p>In Long Beach, the Queen Mary is worth seeing, imo…too bad they moved the Spruce Goose to Oregon. If you have the time/mood/$$$ for an upscale dinner, Sir Winston’s at the stern of the ship does it very very nicely.</p>
<p>Down Orange County way, Laguna Beach & Laguna Niguel are definitely picturesque. Someone on CC was good enough to point me at The Five Crowns restaurant in Laguna Niguel and I heartily endorse it.</p>
<p>I’ve never been to the Wild Animal Park in northern San Diego County but I’ve heard lots of good things. Ditto for Shakespeare and other performing arts in Balboa Park in San Diego, where the Old Town is fun to kick around.</p>
<p>If you’re inclined at all towards museums, I’d have some additional recs for LA if you’re interested. Disneyland does tend to be overrun; if you were going to do a theme parkish kind of thing, I’d actually recommend the Universal tour at Universal City…gives some idea of some of the technology and other aspects of making movies and there are some “volunteers from the audience” things that can be fun.</p>
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<p>Ah…just remembered. We did this trip in reverse, LA to Seattle a few years back, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland was one of the “keepers” from that trip. All of us want to get back there. Definitely reserve tickets in advance.</p>
Don’t miss Point Lobos <a href=“