weekend on the Central CA coast

This is a long overdue post, but I have to share a weekend trip Coleman and I took back in January. We definitely stay busy on the weekends whether it is a Fresno area or CSU-Fresno event. The weekends we have free we try to plan something fun, new and exciting. After winter break back east, which actually wasn't that wintery at all, we wanted to take a beach trip and see some of Central CA. Per our backgrounds, we love college towns so we knew we wanted to go to San Luis Obispo, home of Cal Poly, and from what we had heard, a cool college town close to the Pacific. We also wanted to visit Paso Robles, the newer and emerging wine country in CA.

Coleman ended up planning a great weekend and I wanted to share with you the highpoints....by the way, this would all definitely be near the top of my list of fun hot spots to hit up when in CA--

1- Friday afternoon we headed out of Fresno to Monterey. Cool oceanside spot. We got there early evening and enjoyed some great seafood and strolled around Monterey. Didn't get to go to the Aquarium which everyone recommends- another trip...

2- the next day we got up and headed down the 1 through some of the finest real estate in CA- Pebble Beach (uh, golf), Carmel (stoppped for lunch here and walked around downtown- an art lovers paradise, Clint Eastwood former Mayor), Big Sur (some of the most amazing views of the Pacific), to the most quaint, friendly ocean towns of Cambria and Morro Bay (as we drove into Morrow Bay there was a street fair and farmers market happening- just my luck!)

stopping during the drive to take in the

views of the Pacific

3- It took us about 2.5 hours to get down the coast from Monterey area, but well worth it. We settled in San Luis Opisbo that Saturday evening. Sunday we enjoyed visiting the wineries in the San Luis area and touring downtown. I guess for our SEC friends, I would compare SLO to Athens, GA. It has a ton of restaurants with lots of variety and a quirky edge about the shops and locals much like Athens.

Edna Valley Vineyard in San Luis County -

recommend the Chardonnay

4- We rounded out the weekend with a drive to some of the Paso Robles wineries (we visited 4 out of the 180 or so in the area- so we'll have to go back some other time LOL---A gentleman that we met at a winery in San Luis suggested we visit Opolo (we recommend- everything! huge selection of wonderful reds) in Paso....ended up being one of our all time favorites! After lunch in quaint downtown Paso, it was about a 2 hour drive back to Fresno.

It was a great weekend and we got to see so much of the central coast. We definitely want to go back to Carmel, Big Sur, and San Luis....not to mention the Paso wineries!