Honeymoon Travels Part 2

Monday – Day 4, we’re usually real good with finding hotels that include breakfast, this trip, Only one did! Granted we were booking hotels the same day, as we drove along, got tired and decided to stop, so we weren’t as picky on options. We got going on a nice foggy cloudy morning from Santa Maria we headed North with some Kind Bars for breakfast. We stopped in Pismo Beach after checking out some coastal areas south of there. We found Chip Wrecked for lunch. They had tasty handmade potato chips with so many options from Sweet to salty to savory. We were in heaven. The sandwich I got was huge, mostly because to make a “full” sandwich they used 4 pieces of GF bread! I got a lot of food and tasty chips to go with it. All their sauces are GF too so it was a treat. Though inside they had a whole 4 tables, they seem like a great place to grab food to take to the beach. We stopped and got some McConnell’s ice cream, because the night before in Santa Barbara the line for ice cream was 2 hours long! It was tasty, but a bit melty. We checked out the big rock in Morro Bay, we met some SUPER friendly squirrels who I think were on to us that we had Kind Bars in the car!

Checked out Hearst castle before taking the detour back to the 101 since the 1 was closed due to a mudslide in 2017 on the 1, south of Big Sur. We got into Monterey later at night, found a cute swanky place to rest our heads and find some food. The hotel restaurant was underwhelming so we headed to Carmel and went to the Carmel’s Bistro Giovanni. Not many places were still open at 9:00, but they were and the food was good. It was a bit pricey but well worth all 3 courses! Prosciutto wrapped melon, gluten free fettuccine and crème brulee as well as tasty wine. 

We got a great night’s sleep and headed on to Big Sur in the morning. It was still super foggy along our drive, luckily it cleared up some on our way back up the 1 by afternoon so we could view the Bixby bridge and see the coast. It was around 1:00 we decided we were hungry, so stopped at a little ‘grocery’ market shop, and got some meat and cheese. We had crackers in the car, and grabbed a dessert I’d never heard of, but said it was GF on the package. 

At this point I’d been fighting cell service for some time so grabbing food to eat in the car was easiest. We were running into small shops and B&B’s so not much in terms of places to eat. We kept going back North up the 1, back to Monterey and stopped to see the pier, there were GF options in the area, but nothing hitting our fancy, we’re not the biggest fish eaters, so we debated where to go and saw there was PF Changs, so we decided why not have Chinese food for dinner. Chinese food is the hardest thing to find GF so we hit up PF Changs while making a plan for the day. 

Changs Spicy Chicken Gluten Free

We checked out 17 mile drive, saw some seals and the lone cypress. We laughed at how bad (awful fish smell) Pebble Beach has and that we feel bad for anyone golfing there it’s so overwhelmingly strong!

To make up some time for time lost going around the mudslide area we brushed thru Santa Cruz and San Francisco. (We’ve been to San Fran, Sausalito and Napa before), though we did stop and enjoy a beautiful sunset of the beach before heading thru San Francisco, and since it was later at night, traffic was a breeze. Trying to stay on our coastal route we couldn’t find anything on the coast for a hotel last minute. We ended up in Santa Rosa, which is just West of wine country so hotels were expensive and the cheap ones were creepy! We ended up with a creepy one to stay on price point, it was an experience! Right by our hotel happened to be the Amy’s Drive Thru! 

Sad part, they were closing the same time we got there. They also opened After we’d left the next morning (booooo) But it was fast food haven there, so we took another visit to In-N-Out Burger before heading back to our interesting hotel. Not our best night’s sleep, we headed out early and on to Bodega Bay, back on the coast.

Day 5, Tuesday – Made a stop at the ‘pier’ in Bodega Bay. Nice quiet fishing town, Bodega Bay is the town the movie the Birds was filmed. (Who knew!) We checked out the menu at The Tide’s Restaurant, they mentioned gluten free and we wanted breakfast food, so we were in. Not the tastiest food, it was fine, very healthy! My eggs didn’t have any salt (or cheese) and my hash browns definitely needed salt! 

Omelet and Hasbrowns.

There was the cutest seal duo playing in the water outside the window that kept us amused while eating. At least it wasn’t foggy any more, but man it was COLD! We kept going on our twisty winding drive up the coast, saw more seals, lighthouses, coves, trees, Tide pools. Stopped at the Chandler Drive thru tree and got some ice cream from the ice cream freezer there. Another late dinner we stopped in Eureka for gas, and with signal finally again we found Stuf’t Potato. Nice little family run European restaurant with amazing huge stuffed potatoes. We both got a potato cause it sounded so good! It didn’t disappoint! 

We made it up to Crescent City to spend the night. Our goal was to be in Oregon by morning. Another cute place to stay. It reminded me of the House on The Rock Inn, in Wisconsin. Cute, they had the most simple breakfast buffet, cereal, gluten, hard boiled eggs, fruit and coffee. We got some food and headed to Oregon! We had a lunch date planned with some friends.

Honeymoon - 9 Days on the go, Gluten Free

Traveling Gluten free for 9 days, while staying at a different place each night makes for an interesting trip. You can’t always rely on Find Me Gluten Free, as I had no service for portions of the trip, even with 3 providers between the two of us we were in total cellular dead zones, so some preplanning is necessary when traveling. We did 9 days of mostly eating out and eating junk food with no stomach issues and only 1 dicey hotel stay! I’d say over all it was a successful trip. I couldn’t have imagined how pretty the coast of California is, and honestly we could have spent even more time on the coast in California but we wanted to get to Seattle. We had to omit Portland, sadly I didn’t get to Ground Breaker Brewery, but I know where to order their beer! We did however make it to Ghostfish which was pretty awesome.

The first 3 days were intertwined with my New Hubbies family since we were in Los Angeles for his cousins wedding. After flying in we went to his aunt’s house for dinner. We were pleasantly greeted with 2 frozen Saffron Road Entrees! 

We laughed, most people would be annoyed to go to someone’s house for dinner and be handed frozen entrees. I was thrilled cause I didn’t want to insult her that I was apprehensive to eat something not knowing how she prepped it. She was quite proud of her accomplishment to find me safe food. We hit up Target to get ourselves some snacks for the trip and hit the hay. It had been a long day of work, travel and family. We got up Saturday and looked thru the app and saw a place in Agoura Hills, Hugo’s. Looking at reviews there were so many options and everything is made from scratch and farm to table. The menu was overwhelming. There were so many options. I wanted to get the French toast but was worried about CC since my hubbie got the Green Tamales and eggs, which were marked (GF) but the server said it wasn’t Gf… I got the Desayuno Fuerte. – I learned I like Poached Eggs. We had turned off highways on the GPS so we took a wonderful drive thru some beautiful canyons and mountains. The wedding we were going to was a generic buffet so I was glad I brought some Kind Bars to hold me over while enjoying some cocktails and mingling and meeting more of his family. We did make a mandatory In-N-Out Burger run on the way back to the hotel. As we walked out we looked at each other and went “In-N-Out?” Love when he reads my mind! My Protein Style burger and cheese fries totally hit the spot! 

Sunday we hit up “The coffee Bean and Tea Leaf” for some morning coffee before heading to his cousins house for a surprise party. The same aunt who got the frozen entrees the first night in town made sure to drop off some frozen GF entrees for me again! (She’s too sweet!!) I’d brought some snacks, not sure what was being served. She was worried about us being away from home and not knowing where grocery stores were, I was set! We ducked out a bit early from the party to start our trip up the coast, but not before taking lots of family photos! We made it to Santa Barbara before sunset and looked up some options on FMGF. The Hoffman Brat House looked tasty so we ventured over there. The menu looked good and they had Gluten Free Fried Pickles, Gluten Free Corndog nuggets listed. Upon talking to the server they don’t have a dedicated fryer….. Ugh. I questioned it after we sat down and were waiting for him to come over cause a reviewer said she had opted to NOT get the fries when she found out the fryer had been cross used so it wasn’t safe that day. So I asked and he inquired and told us “no we don’t have any dedicated fryers.” Thanks FMGF, and crappy reviewers. At least there were still options on the menu since it was getting late, we’d already ordered drinks and man was it cold out that night! We got some bacon wrapped dates, (Not marked GF but verified gf) and a brat on a GF bun and a side of pickles. Cute town, good food, bustling despite the cold weather. That rounded out the first weekend for our trip.

Bacon Wrapped Dates, Sign me up!

Gluten Free Brat on a bun and pickles - Yum!