Bajo en Baja: San Quintin, Baja California, Mexico

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  It's morning in San Quintin. Actually, Vicente Guerrero, the city right next to San Quintin. That where the Mission Inn, our hotel, is.  There are two here. This one with two accessible rooms with its English spelling and another one on a nearby beach, Mision Inn (notice the Spanish spelling) that is not accessible.

We've come simply for the proposition "what if we kept driving past Ensenada? What would we find?"

Watch the Video!

San Quintin is the next town of any size south of Ensenada. It's around three hours driving time further down from that large, port city.

Baja travel guides note that this is the last chance for a few hundred miles to access major services for drivers on Mexico's Transpeninsular Highway like gas, car service, ATM, supermarkets, and decent lodging.

While the town is sizeable, it's not large. The highway is the only paved road in town.  It's a dusty, muddy, and basic place. I have to wonder why they even have car washes here like the somewhat inapprotriately named business we see across the street from the PEMEX gas station above.

The town is nice. There's no drunken tourists clogging the streets or drug cartels shooting it out in the background. It's main business is farming...this is the tomato capital of the world with thousands and thousands of red fruit ripening to send north to supermarkets on the other side of the border.

Just because there are few, if any, tourists around doesn't mean there is nothing to see.  Strapping Tim in tight, we head west down an unpaved dirt and gravel road. Signs say we have three miles to go.  After a very bumpy few minutes, another says two miles to go.  Tim's complaining mightily about the beating he and his chair are taking when we see another sign..."Yeah!! You made it!"

Finally, we pull up to the bay where a gentleman waving a flag directs us into a small parking lot. We find nowhere to park with a wheelchair van so we go back out, explain it to him, and he puts us in a spot right next to the boat ramp where there's also a wheelchair ramp to access the facilities.

We're at Bahia de San Quintin and the Molino Viejo (old mill) restaurant and bar. At the top of the bay, you'll find this large restaurant, larger bar, an ocean front plaza to relax it, boat ramp, parking, small history museum, fish cleaning sink, a couple of spartan motels, and another restaurant and bar next door.

The plan is just to spend the afternoon exploring, eating, drinking, talking to people, and unwinding.

A small flea market is set up between the restaurant and neighboring Old Mill Hotel. Letty goes browsing there while Tim and I set up at a waterfront table and enjoy a bag of chips and some Mexican Coke.

Dozens of pelicans fly around, dive bombing unfortunate anchovies, and pose for pictures on the pilings. I walk over to a rock-protected depression at the narrow neck of the bay where kids are pulling in fish and clams.

This used to be a large wheat mill. An English company was granted a concession to grow and mill wheat in the area.  Remains of the millworks litter the area. Ships were loaded with flour and sent out to the world.

Now, it's a sleepy but beautiful little fishing village where fisherman line up at the boat ramp to head out to the abundant waters. At 3:00, the boats come back in where loads of large fish are taken to be cleaned at the sink.

We visit with the manager of the Old Mill Hotel and she shows us one of the four accessible rooms here.  It's a large room with a large bathroom. A queen size bed shares the space with a twin bed giving plenty of room for 3 people. I imagine there'd be plenty of room for a roll-in bed if needed also. The shower is big and barrier-free. It is a very accessible room.

Beyond that, however, it's not much. No TV (but that would be a feature, not a bug for some people) and no air conditioning. Here in the fall and winter, that's not a big deal but those hot Baja summers would present a challenge even if it is on the ocean.

Outside is a nice sized patio with a large fireplace and grill. At around $40 per room per night, this would be an ideal place for a family reunion or get-together. I'm already planning one in my mind...

We go back to the Molino Viejo and have a few drinks...Tim and Letty with their Pina Coladas while I try the Cadillac margarita.  After, we visit the small museum next door.

Dioramas depict the areas history while a few artifacts, such as a mammoth tooth and some native tools, illustrate a more ancient history.

Over across the driveway, we find the remains of a boat on the beach, another little plaza, and some informational signs about the bay. Tim and I go to the water at the edge of the boat ramp to get our toes and wheels wet.

We end the day having dinner back at the restaurant, filling up on steak, burgers, and fish before bumping our way back to town and the Mission Inn. It's delicious food and very budget friendly. Where else will you get a great ribeye steak dinner with all the trimmings for less than $15 these days?

Tomorrow, we have more plans for San Quintin but those will be interrupted for a more important mission. Stay tuned for that.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

California's Central Coast - Morro Bay and Avila Beach

While strolling along the commercial fishing wharf in Morro Bay, we encountered a couple from Germany and got to talking.  We talked about our love of Munich and Bavaria and then asked what they thought of this little town.

“It is very beautiful,” they replied, “but what is THAT?”

Watch the Video!

They were pointing at the one thing that keeps this little seaside town from becoming a real tourist mecca, the large power plant that mars the view on the north end of the bay.  They were aghast, mostly because they thought it was a nuclear plant plopped right into the middle of town.  Not to worry about that, I told them, it’s just a conventional plant that’s been there for half a century…I think they were confusing it with the Diablo Canyon nuclear generating station, which is located several miles south of here.

The Power Plant is Hard to Miss

Ignore the plant and you have a great, scenic, and reasonably priced seaside getaway.  It may just be because of that plant that the prices here are as low as they are.

Morro Bay lies due west of Bakersfield on California’s Central Coast.  This is the section of the state’s coastline that extends roughly from Santa Barbara on the south to just below San Francisco on the north end.  Many of the state’s gems lie along this route: Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Monterey, and Santa Cruz just to name a few.

We start off in Bakersfield and take Highway 46 over the coastal hills.  This is a lonely, scenic road and is historically one of the area’s more dangerous roads…it was nicknamed “Blood Alley” for the large number of head-on collisions.  About halfway over the hills, in a pretty little valley is the intersection with highway 41, is the spot where the most memorable of these crashes occurred.

Here on September 30, 1955, actor James Dean…on his way to race his Porsche Spyder at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey…crashed head-on into a truck that crossed into his lane.  He died a short time later when he was taken to the War Memorial Hospital in Paso Robles.

Just up the road is a small diner where a memorial to Dean sits in the parking lot.  Walk around the back…signs warn you to watch for rattlesnakes…and you’ll see a line of trees.  That is the spot where the San Andreas Fault cleaves the state in two.

Driving carefully over the rest of the route, we arrive at Highway 1 just north of Harmony and turn south.  Somewhere in the hills to the left, another black day in the state happened when fired airline employee, David Burke, burst into the cockpit of PSA flight 1771 and shot the pilots dead.  The plane dove into the ground at full speed, killing all 44 aboard including the supervisor who fired him.

After this tour of gruesome California history, we see our destination shrouded in fog up ahead with Morro Rock poking through the low-hanging cloud.

Our hotel for this trip is the Best Western San Marcos Inn, just two blocks from the waterfront.   Barrier-free rooms with two queen beds are available and the hotel serves a free light continental breakfast along with a wine and cheese mixer every evening in the lobby.  There is no pool but instead a large hot tub with views of the bay.  Just about everything in town is within walking distance.

After checking in and taking in the view from our room, we head down to the water to have a look around.  Weaving in and out around the buildings on the wharf is a walkway where everyone can walk along and drink in the gorgeous ocean views.  The town has gone one step further and made this entire walkway wheelchair accessible.  It’s not a straight line, but you can stroll along the entire waterfront from the huge Morro Rock in the north  to the marina at the south end of the bay.  It is a very common site to see sea lions and otters frolicking in the water along the way. 

And the rock?  It’s the town’s signature feature.  A morro is a volcanic plug where the surrounding mountain has worn down exposing the rock underneat.  There are nine of these ancient domes in the area, Morro Rock being the most famous, spectacularly sitting between the town and the waves.

Dinner tonight will be at the Hofbrau where you can get a delicious beef dip sandwich, custom carved right in front of you.  There are a few German beers available, along with the usual suspects on tap.  We get some of these delicious sandwiches and sit next to the windows overlooking the water.  It’s a very inexpensive, good restaurant with a view.  That’s pretty rare.

The next morning we have a delicious breakfast of omelets and pancakes at Dorn’s, a nice restaurant sitting atop a small hill overlooking the waterfront.  After eating, we head out to the rock. 

An unpaved, but fairly smooth path allows wheelchair to get a little ways around the rock toward the ocean.  Soon, however, the path will get too rocky to allow access all the way to the water.  For birders, looking up will reveal hundreds of nooks, crannies, and little caves where gulls and peregrine falcons nest.  We came upon a small group of watchers with telescopes set up on tripods who allowed up to look at a mother falcon guarding her brood.

A drive across town leads us to Morro Bay State Park where another morro, White’s Point, sits next to the visitor’s center.  A path leads around the rock but the last hundred feet or so to the top is too steep to make wheelchair accessible.  Back at the visitor’s center, several spectacular views of the bay are barrier free.  The center is also undergoing a makeover to make it more accessible to wheelers.

Back in town, we take a bay cruise on a boat with windows under the water.  It’s not wheelchair accessible but Letty and I take a quick ride to get pictures for Tim.  Another cruise operator at the north end of the wharf, Chablis Cruises, offers accessible tours on a more traditional boat.

After the cruise, we stroll around looking at the shops.  A garden center across the street has quite an array of custom fountains.  I come close to buying one for the yard, but decide not to when I think of how I will get it home.

Today is the Morro Bay Music Festival and several bands are rotating through the main stage set up in a parking lot across from the wharf.  Up on the hill in the downtown section, there’s a great farmer’s market with more live bands…seemingly playing in every bar and corner.  It’s a very musical day here in Morro Bay. 

I buy some fruit and cheese for a lunch snack as we sit back and listen.  An orchid greenhouse nearby provides a quiet getaway from all the action on the streets.

Dinner tonight will be at Tognazzini’s, an out-of-the-way restaurant nestled in with the commercial fishing fleet at the north end of town, based upon a recommendation from the skipper of the tour boat.  We are not disappointed with the fish and pasta dinner that we have.  

Afterward, we stroll along the fishing fleet as we take our last sunset views of the town.

Checking out in the morning, we head south to the town of Avila Beach.  Formerly a run-down, funky ocean side enclave of hippies, fishermen, and surfers…the town is undergoing a renaissance thanks to a huge settlement and remediation given to them by the Union Oil Company whose oil facility leaked hazardous waste under the town for decades.  The oil company demolished a huge part of the town, removed the tainted sand, and rebuilt from the ground up.  Still funky but no longer run down, the waterfront is a sparkling jewel sitting on a beautiful beach.

We have breakfast at my favorite omelet place in the world, The Custom House.  The previous incarnation here had a patio out back overflowing with plants and exotic birds in cages.  With the new building, the birds are gone and the new patio, while still beautiful, seems a little sterile without the birds.  The food is still great, however.

Nearby is the Harford Pier, built in 1873, where another local restaurant…Fatcats…sits on the hillside.  Many people, including my parents, swear by this little diner.  It is very good, but the linguica omelet at the Custom House always beckons me.

Being one of the very few piers in California that actually let you drive on it, we head out to the end where we find a handicapped spot and unload.  A nice but pricey dinner house, The Olde Port Inn, sits atop a bustling little fish monger shop.  At the end is a large platform where people set up to fish, no license required.

When I was a kid, we had a family reunion type party here and the several of us fishing caught 250 red snapper and netted dozens of crabs for the boilers we set up on the camp fire.  I don’t think there’s that much to catch anymore, but it’s still a nice place to drop a line.

Down below on the boat dock platform, a dozen sea lions lounge on the wood.  Off of the pier, several more of the illiterate animals sit on a platform with a sign begging users to close the gate to keep the sea lions off.

Refreshed and relaxed, we climb back into the van and head south along the ocean on Highway 101 back into L.A. and home.  It just dawned on me that I haven’t thought about that damn power plant at all since we talked to that friendly couple from Germany…just soak up Morro Bay and you’ll put it out of your mind too.

The Far Side of Morro Rock

Darryl

Copyright 2010 – Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Cooling Off Over the Hill - An Afternoon in Morro Bay

It's in the nineties here in Atascadero (actually, that's not too bad for mid-July here) so we're going to take a break over the hill in Morro Bay, which is in the sixties today.

It's only about a twenty minute drive on Highway 41 from Atascadero to the heart of Morro Bay. We find a good parking spot just north of midway on the Embarcadero, Morro Bay's waterfront street.

Watch the Video!

It's always a good time to meander along the wharf's path along the water, which is a good ten degrees cooler on this side than it is on the street less than one hundred feet away. The path is not a straight line. It weaves in and out of all the shops, restaurants, and other buildings facing the water.  It is accessible to wheelchairs, though, so it's a cool...almost cold...way to wander along, businesses on one side, sea lions and otters on the other.

While it's a good way to pass the day just inhaling that salt-water air and marveling at the Morro Rock view, it helps to have a couple of other stops, too.

Rose's Bar and Grill welcomes us to sit at their long, low, boat-shaped bar with a view of the rock. The height of the bar is perfect and, as a happily coincidentally result, is completely wheelchair accessible.

Letty has their house cabernet, which happens to be from Ancient Peaks Winery in nearby Templeton.

"I've got a coupon for free tasting there," I tell her. That will come in handy tomorrow.

"Good, 'cuz this is a really wonderful wine," she tells me.

Tim has his soda while I have an Alaskan Red Ale before we continue on our way.  

Before Letty wanders up the hill to the leather shop to look around, we stop in at a bakery to have a snack. There's a fireplace going in the middle of the dining room that really isn't necessary this July day but I'm sure comes in handy on those cold, winter days like we had the last time we visited Morro Bay.

Yes, it's a short, sweet, cool little break from the heat of Atascadero over the hill but it really helps to recharge us for another day in our little cave of a room.

We'll have some more fun tomorrow.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - The Final Chapter

We've been covering our home state of California with a summer long series of reports up and down the Golden State. That summer long tour concludes today with the finale of our trip to the Monterey Peninsula and the cities of Carmel, Pacific Grove, and Monterey. Hope you had fun on this trip, be sure to let us know via the comment link at the end of the report.

In Part One of our Monterey Peninsula trip, we dodged poison oak to get breathtaking ocean views, had breakfast in a patio across the street from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and walked the streets of Carmel. Now on to part two...

The next morning we have an even better breakfast at Toasties, a comfortable and cozy diner parked in an old house in downtown Pacific Grove on Lighthouse Avenue.

Omelets filled with chorizo and avocado accompanied with silver dollar pancakes, along with French toast for Letty, make a great start to the day.

Monterey Peninsula Video

Watch the Video!

Passionfish…our favorite area dinner house…is across the street. Tim, having heard us rave about it for years, says he wouldn’t mind giving it a try.

This is a surprise as Tim would not usually volunteer to eat at a mainly seafood restaurant.

Our plan today was to go to the fair and load up on the fair food as our lunch and dinner. This throws a happy kink into our plans as I was lamenting not being able to eat there this trip.

“If I can get a reservation, we’ll go for dinner,” I tell Tim and Letty.

Walking across the street, I see there’s no one inside. There’s not a phone number printed on the sign or the menu posted on the door. Should we just try our luck later…on a Saturday night…to see if they have a table available?  Sounds very iffy to me.

Letty goes to a stand of newspaper machines nearby and pulls out one of the local freebie flyers. We’re in luck…Passionfish has an ad in it with their phone number.

Driving off to the fair, I call the number and leave a reservation request on their voice mail.

We get to the fairgrounds about a half hour before opening at noon. Even now, there is no parking available at all. Probably due to the fact that this facility has no parking lot…it’s all adjacent street parking.

Remote parking is available…with a wheelchair accessible shuttle too…but we could not find any confirmation at the time that the shuttle was available. We end up parking about a quarter mile away on a side street and walk in.

The fairgrounds here are small, a long narrow strip about two blocks long. There are exhibit buildings and a kids carnival at one end, a lot of food and drink booths clustered around the entrance in the middle, and the animal exhibits, the main carnival, and an arena at the other end.

The arena, quiet while we’re there, is also home of the historic Monterey Jazz Festival which has featured some great performances over the years including Jimi Hendrix’s historic performance back in the 60’s.

After watching a local dance troupe perform, we wander around a few exhibit buildings ending up at the Agriculture building where, in  addition to seeing blue ribbon winning produce, there’s a farmers market stand where you can actually buy the produce…pretty cheaply too!

I get a quartered navel orange in a plastic bag for a quarter. Nearby is a table giving away samples of berries.  Strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries…all very delicious and, even better, free.

Back in the mid section, the local high school wrestling team sells fried calamari. It’s sort of a famous tradition here at this fair. I’m not a seafood lover but I buy some for Tim and Letty, who seem to really like it. I try a piece, just to shut them up. It’s good…really good.  I want more. It’s some of the best fair food I’ve ever had.

We get to the other end of the fair to check out the animals. Cows lick our hands, goats climb up the side of their pens hoping for a neck scratch, and lambs want to see what we smell like.

It’s all a lot of fun…just wish they had better parking.

After a fun-filled day at the fair, we head over to Passionfish for dinner. We’d gotten a call while at the fair saying the only time they could seat us was 5:30 so off we went.

Dinner was excellent and it’s nice to see how this place has taken off over the years. I see we’re not the only ones who think it’s the best the area has to offer.

With plates of scallops, braised lamb, and duck confit preceded by an appetizer of prosciutto wrapped dates, we were overwhelmed with the deep flavors and fun atmosphere of Passionfish.

One more night, but in the morning it’s time to pack and make that long drive back to L.A.

Darryl

Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - Looking Beyond the Usual

The trail had lead to a bluff precariously perched about fifty feet above the breakers and rocks below. It was smooth and wide enough for the wheelchair to roll easily and avoid the hedges on each side that appeared to be about halfway composed of poison oak.

A mild enough scare watching Tim navigate his way out through that bit of a challenge and the wooden railings at the edge were enough to bring my parent’s worrying pulse rate down a bit.

Monterey Bay Video

Watch the Video!

Beyond, however…where the ocean had eaten away at the edge...the railing gave way to rope strung across metal stakes about ten feet apart.

“We’re not finishing the loop,” I told my wife. “We’ll go back the way we came.”

There are two wheelchair accessible trails here at the Point Lobos State Park in Carmel, California. Not enough parking in general and especially in regards to handicapped spaces, I pull halfway into a regular spot so I can unload Tim from the van, then pull the rest of the way in.

It was the last spot left. If I didn’t do that, I’d have no place to park and the ten dollar entrance fee would have just been for a short, but scenic drive through the park.

The trail was nicely maintained and a park docent was set up with a spotting scope pointing out to sea. He was very helpful and maneuvered the tripod to where Tim could roll up and get a close-up look at the hundreds of sea lions lounging on an offshore rock.

This was the second day of a Labor Day getaway for us to the Monterey Peninsula. We’ve come up here many times and thought we’d come up for an end of summer trip pegged to the Monterey County Fair, which runs a week or so from the end of August to just after Labor Day.

The hotel for this trip was the Rosedale Inn in Pacific Grove, just a block from the ocean sitting on the backside of Asilomar State Park and Conference Center.

Our room had a king size bed, queen size sofabed, tub with bench and shower hose, roll-under sink, fireplace, free wifi, and a big open area to wheel around in. What it didn’t have were any extra seats which would have come in handy for friends that were visiting us there.  It did have an expansive outdoor deck adjacent to the room that served that particular function well.

After sleeping off the long drive from L.A…made longer by a meal stop in Bakersfield and more traffic than we bargained for…we have a delicious and lingering breakfast at First Awakenings.

Technically in Pacific Grove, but just across the street from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we feast on crepes, crab benedict, and French toast on their outdoor patio while the nearby fire pit helps chase away the morning chill.

After our hike, we spend a little time in downtown Carmel. Cute, charming, and full of shops, it’s nice but a little shopping goes a long way for Tim and I.

There's more to come, stay tuned for part 2...coming soon!

Darryl

Copyright 2011 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved