Yes. It has actually been almost 2 years since our epic month long road trip and I FINALLY have gotten around to blogging part 3. Better late than never… right? 🤪 Anyway, here are the deets about the first part of our second half of our journey in the summer of 2021! If you’re stumbling upon this and have not read about our previous adventures, I recommend reading Part 1 & Part 2 first. Then after this there is one final leg of the journey… Part 4!
Day 14
📍Encinitas, CA:
Day 14 signifies the official halfway mark of our month long road trip! This is insane. 2 weeks has felt both like forever and like no time at all. We’ve done so much in FIVE states in the past 13 days (and have driven through 7 states so far). Spending time on new adventures every day along the way, instead of rushing across the country to get to one final destination has been the best way to experience everything. It’s all about the journey. We’ve been camping almost the entire time so far and living out of our prius….. something many thought and told us couldn’t be done. Well so far, we’ve survived (and thrived!) PSA for whoever needs to hear this - you do NOT need an RV to travel across the country!
Day 15
📍La Jolla & Los Angeles, CA:
We spent some time in La Jolla before continuing on our trek up to LA! We walked along the park with some art vendors popping up which was pretty cool. We saw the seals and sea lions, and it was crazy to see so many people carelessly swimming with them. I was walking along the water and had a nice chat with a cool dude who was recharging a bunch of his crystals in the salty ocean. We shared a moment together of peace, calm, and a form of recharged inspiration, and he then gave me a piece of quartz to keep. The people out there are just so chill and have a very different energy field about them.
We then ate at what is still one of my TOP favorite places to this day…. Trilogy Sanctuary. It is an incredible plant based eatery and yoga studio with roof top dining and a sweet lounge area for us to hang out with the dogs. People were eating, doing yoga, having meetings, sitting on their laptops doing work, and although really crowded, people were kind and cool. We struck up a conversation with some of the people sitting near us and our dogs (fortunately) were very well behaved in such a tight sitting area with so many other people. Their menu features mostly raw and whole food plant based comfort style meals. Think - smoothies, colorful energizing earth bowls, breakfast foods, juices, etc. I still dream about the tasty bowl I got and have actually tried recreating a lot of their smoothie recipes as well! They’re SOOOO good and you can feel the love and positive energy in all the food. They also have an upscale gift shop and unique event space.
Afterwards, I popped into the Avocado mattress store that happened to be next to Trilogy because I always DREAMED of buying an overpriced Avocado mattress, but I would never actually consider ordering one without trying it out first. So this was my chance to experience one in real life and I basically took a power nap on one of their beds while explaining I was on a road trip and might buy one at a later date. (And to this day I still have not upgraded our mattress yet, but still have Avocado’s sustainability and vegan mattress options in mind for the future). Their employees were very awesome and fun to talk with.
We continued our trek up to LA and decided to get a hotel for a few nights to give the dogs a break to relax — and a chance for US to wander off and get a little break from them too! It’s all about balance. When we arrived in LA we met up with Josh’s BFF and incredible cartoonist Sam for some late night all vegan diner food at Fred62.
Day 16
📍Los Angeles, CA:
Okay so every day has been amazing but Day 16 felt an extra sort of amazing (maybe because as tired parents we finally got a break from the “kids”??) We left the dogs to relax in the hotel room and had our first full day exploring the LA area! We did some morning hiking at Griffith Park and found a cool fruit market with rare tropical fruits and got some favorites- Mamey, white sapote, kiwano, and mangosteen. (Josh and I still joke around that when we got married we should have changed our last name to Mangosteen.. hey I guess it’s never too late!) Here’s Manny checking out our Kiwano.
We had a blast exploring BESTIE’S VEGAN PARADISE - a fully vegan grocery store with literally every vegan product on the market ranging from snacks, to chocolates and candies, to “meats” and “cheeses” to all dairy products and frozen and refrigerated, to drinks and cold brews and so much more. If you’re a vegan visiting LA I highly recommend stopping in to check them out!
We got a small haul of goodies and stickers and then headed to Pura Vita Pizzeria for lunch (We had a hard time deciding between Pura Vita and Crossroads… both very well known and highly recommended restaurants in West Hollywood but were craving Italian so we went to Pura Vita!) Pura Vita is the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant and wine bar in the US and their food did NOT disappoint! We enjoyed a lentil meatball park sandwich (that’s pressed and kind of looks like a calzone!) and a “black magic” pizza with mushrooms. The food was outstanding!
We wandered around the area on foot and I found some cool non-profit thrift stores with great stuff called “out of the closet” which directly fund those living with HIV/AIDS and have gorgeous Halloween window displays! I can never pass up a good thrift stop on any trip.
Then we went to Venice beach and Santa Monica, found more vegan eats including a red velvet layer cake we snagged from Whole Foods… which we later ate in bed at the hotel with our pizza leftovers while watching movies with the dogs. Perfect way to end the night!
Day 17
📍Joshua Tree, CA:
We LOVE Joshua Tree! We headed out for a road trip to the famous National Park we had been dreaming about visiting. We stopped along the way to visit some dinosaurs first though at Cabazon Dinosaurs!
Day 18
📍Los Angeles, CA:
We met up with Sam and his now fiancé Olivia, and got brunch at Cafe Gratitude! A delicious vegan brunch spot.
We explored more of LA in our own way…. Saw an afternoon showing of “The Witches” (the original version) in a theater, wandered around a bunch of fun shops including a huge Funko Pop store, some eclectic book stores, artsy shops and Halloween stores. My friend Pam who I used to work with in NJ with endangered shorebirds lives in the Burbank area so I hit her up and she hung out with us for a bit too!
Sam is a pretty big time artist, and it was really cool to see his some of his art in its natural habitat!
We finished the night with delicious vegan bar food from Tony’s Darts Away and vegan ice cream pies from Magpies. Fun times with fun friends!
Day 19
📍Westlake Village, Moonstone Beach & Hearst San Simeon SP, CA:
We left LA and met my friend Helen (who I hadn’t met in person before, she was a customer of mine that’s ordered art from me and wanted to get together!) and her hubby in Westlake Village for brunch at Joi Cafe. So besides eating with great company, this was a really memorable meal because their plant based food options are SO unique. Josh got a breakfast pizza (that was absolutely beautiful and had FLOWERS on it!) and I got a watermelon poke bowl which has since completely transformed how I use watermelon in my meals (I am CONSTANTLY making my own watermelon poke bowls at home that are literally inspired by this restaurant!)
There happened to be a pretty big farmers market happening at that moment in the parking lot, so we wandered around and got a few things.. including some locally grown dragonfruit from (I eat dragonfruit all the time but this was THE best one I’ve ever had.. I swear the produce out west is so much sweeter!) Just look at that hot pink flesh!!
Day 20
📍San Simeon, Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey, Pacific Grove & San Francisco CA:
We woke up, packed up the tent, and got going super early to start a fully packed day! We first stopped in San Simeon to see the elephant seals at Elephant Seal Vista Point. Watching them swim and play in their natural habitat was amazing - we viewed them close up through our binoculars.
Then we scanned the Hearst Castle grounds for the wild zebra herd that lives there but didn’t have any luck spotting them. Continued our drive up through Big Sur, and stopped at McWay Falls and other scenic overlooks along the way including Point Lobos.
Visited the adorable town of Carmel to walk around and explore the shops and then stopped for lunch at a vegetarian deli in Pacific Grove. We visited the pacific grove monarch sanctuary where overwintering monarchs west of the Rockies migrate to every winter, but as we suspected it was too early for any to have arrived yet this year (but considering I’ve been to so many monarch hot spots within the US and Mexico so far, it was cool to add a Pacific coast spot monarch hot spot to my list!).
Grabbed some organic strawberries from a quaint little farmers market and explored a little bit of Monterey and drove by the aquarium (although we did not visit, I have always been a huge fan of the research they do and their education programs including a great sustainable seafood app!) We kept on movin’ up the coast and finally made it to San Francisco.
To continue reading about our road trip journey (which includes some of the most scenic spots of our trip!), check out my blog post about Part 4, the final leg of our travels!
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