Our first stop was, of course, the NEW Cafe Rio that just opened up in Orange County. Can I just say how happy I am to know it's only an hour car ride away?
We continued our drive up the 5 to the coast. One of the best parts about the weekend was that it was kind of rainy and stormy when we left -- our favorite kind of weather. So the sky and clouds and hills were so gorgeous.
The first night we stayed in Oxnard, a little beach town that's pretty special to me. Oxnard was the place that my mom, sister and I spent a whole summer when I was about ten or eleven years old. It was before we had any idea we'd be moving to California. My step-dad's family owned a tiny little beach house, literally, ON the beach. I'm not kidding when I say ON the beach. Like, backyard is sand and beach. Hopefully you can tell by the pictures. But, I have to say, that summer we stayed there is one of my all time favorite summers ever (tied with the summer my dad took us to Italy). My sister and I just played on the beach every single day. We didn't swim much, we waded mostly, because we weren't used to the huge waves. Long Island Sound is pretty dull in the wave department -- the ocean mostly just laps onto shore. When we arrived at the house it was pretty dusty inside. No one had been there for a while. I remember we re-painted the kitchen and swept all the sand out. The little house has since been sold, but it's still part of my happiest childhood memories. Seeing it again for the first time in almost 20 years was pretty special. And although it looks like a bunch of hippies owned the place, I still look at it and smile. I'm so glad Tyler decided to take me back there! And I'm glad I could show him and share with him those memories of mine.
Here's the back of the house. See what I mean about the backyard and sand? Not an illusion. Where the wall stops the sand starts.
This beach itself is absolutely amazing. It's wide and stretches on forever. It's breathtaking.
This picture is for my step-dad. He grew up going to this corner store in the summer.
We also had some amazing fish tacos from this place:
Some of the best I've ever had.
For breakfast we ate here:
One of the top rated breakfast places. It was awesome!
And one thing I couldn't get over on our trip was seeing all that snow on the mountains. I'm not used to being at the beach and seeing that. It was beautiful!
That afternoon we continued our drive up to Santa Barbara. Tyler and I had been there before a few years ago for my birthday but didn't get to spend much time there. This time we spent almost the whole day. I really love Santa Barbara. All the shops and antique stores and the beach and the views. It's got a nice little beach town feel but is still hip and young.
We drove down the beach and saw a lot of sail boats that had been stranded on shore. It must have been because of the storms from the week before. But it was pretty wild to see these huge boats buried in the sand.
Then we went up to the Mission. The grounds and the view is amazing from up there.
The skull and bones was for Max. And I thought the pointing friar was pretty funny.
We had a great trip together. We missed our babies but we were glad we had the chance to spend some time just the two of us for more than just a few hours on a Saturday night (we don't get many of those either). Definitely need to make it a regular thing, like once a year or something.
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