Road Trip to Our Mini Pismo Beach Vacation

In April I started a new job, which means that this summer we had to do mini vacations versus full blown vacations. Our trip to Calgary was just five days (including travel on the fourth of July). And we took another long four day weekend right before the kids started school.

Well planned a long weekend mini vacation can be wonderful. The key is to keep travel at a minimum ... no more than four hours door to door. Calgary was a two hour flight away, and Banff a short ninety minute drive from Calgary. Pismo Beach located near San Luis Obispo (SLO) is three to four hours from San Jose (depends on whether you take scenic route 1 or boring 101).

We've spent enough time in SLO, either passing through or stay for a day to have a favorite destination restaurant in mind, the Big Sky Cafe, and we had booked a hotel for three nights. Otherwise, we were completely unplanned.

This time around we chose to do the scenic route there. An opportunity to detox a bit if you like roadtrips. And Jonathan and I like roadtrips. Route 1 has a lot of awesome sites along the way, from the Bixby Creek Bridge to Hearst Castle and ... of course elephant seals.

Stopping by the elephant seal rookery is a must when traveling on Route 1. I think I've been telling Jonathan about my Sophomore biology trip to see the elephant seals at Año Nuevo since we first met, but I didn't know that just 45 minutes north of Pismo was an overlook where you can watch these amazingly large sea creatures and their pups basking in the sun from a safe distance.

When we were driving we spotted a crowd of people looking over a lookout onto a beach with massive grey things and decided to pull over. And there was Piedras Bancas State Park. It was the highlight of the days festivities.

When we got to Pismo Beach the boys hit the hotel pool, which was heated. This was a good thing since it was about 60 degrees and foggy. But the disadvantage of road trips is the need to run the kids afterward. Cooped up for four hours in car is long time for a five and seven year old.

They happily swam, and they weren't alone in the pool. Jonathan took out a wonderful pasta dinner in from Guiseppe's Fine Italian Restaurant, and we watched the closing ceremonies for the Olympics.