california road trip: days 6 through 11

if you missed part one, you can scroll down to read it. 

on the morning of day 6, we made the short drive from lompoc to santa barbara, where we wandered around the downtown for a bit. 

then we continued towards san diego and stopped on the side of the road in ventura to watch some surfers. we also stopped to buy a giant flat of strawberries. 

our next stop was santa monica. i remember this being a really fun city with it's pier and muscle beaches. azalea did bumper cars on the pier and both kids played some arcade games. this is the closest thing to disney that they experienced and i am more than fine with that. ;) 

they thought all the equipment on the beach was super fun.

we made a stop for dinner and had our very first "in n out" experience. i will say, i think culvers is much better, but it was tasty. 

we finally made it to thatcher's aunt linda and uncle jim's house at 9pm that night. 

the next morning the kids got to play with all the fun 80's toys that were thatcher's cousins'. they were in heaven! 

on day 7 we got to go to the san diego zoo's safari park. we have been to the regular zoo before, so we decided to do something slightly different. it was such a cool place - we got to go on a tram ride into the "wilderness" area and see animals in a close replica of their natural habitat. 

in the afternoon, we visited thatcher's aunt and uncle at their frame shop on the mainstreet in encinitas. 

then we took a walk to swami's beach, which is incredible! 

we enjoyed some time in linda and jim's awesome eclectic backyard filled with fruit trees

on the morning of day 8 we visited "vg donut and bakery" which was delicious. the we headed to moonlight beach with thatcher's cousin sage, his wife kristen, and their daughter stella. the kids played on the playground and then on the beach. it's such a pretty spot! 

we had lunch in town and walked around encinitas a bit. 

after dinner that night, we went back to moonlight beach for sunset. there was a guy doing giant bubbles there and the kids had a ball chasing them. 

day 9 was our last day in encinitas. thatcher's aunt and uncle hosted a big brunch for us, their kids/grandkid, and thatcher's other aunt and uncle who live on coronado island. there was so much delicious food! 

our last activity in encinitas was to visit thatcher's cousin sierra's chickens that live in her yard. the kids loved it. 

then it was time to hit the road back to seattle. i mentioned in my last post that we opted to take the interstate (i5) back because it's much quicker than the coast. so the drive back was less scenic, but the kids already were missing a couple days of school, so we needed to get back. we drove about 5 hours this day and ended in santa nella, california.

day 10 was a long driving day with some fun stops along the way. this was somewhere south of san francisco: 

we also stopped in sacremento and went to the train museum and out for lunch. the train museum was one of the best ones we've ever been to - and we've been to a lot! 

later that day we stopped in the shasta-trinity national forest to see a waterfall. we were at 4,000 ft. elevation so there was snow! it was really pretty. 

we ended the day by staying in medford, oregon. 

day 11 (last day!), we stopped in eugene, oregon for lunch. we had not been there yet, but it's been on our list for a long time. we only really had time to get lunch, but we hope to make it back again sometime. 

it felt good to finally make it back to washington and we were home by 6:30 pm. 

it was such a fun adventure and i'm so glad we did it!