Dude, The Surf’s Always Up In San Diego’s North County

by Dave Seminara on

If you want a taste of quintessential California beach culture, complete with a heaping dose of surf, sand and tacos, head north of San Diego to North County. When I’m in Southern California, I don’t mind soaking up the cliché tourist experience: I want to be on the beach, gazing out at the limitless Pacific Ocean, watching the surfers, preferably with a taco or three in hand. Here’s an idea for how to spend a totally epic day in North County and La Jolla, dude.

Start the day at Pipes Café, a killer breakfast spot very close to the beach in Cardiff by the Sea. Step up the counter and order the #1 breakfast burrito ($5.95), which comes with sausage, avocado, cheese and, get this, five eggs. Five eggs for God’s sakes! When my bad boy arrived, the beast took up the entire basket (see photo) and I practically needed a forklift to get the damn thing up and into my mouth.


I’m a total glutton, but I couldn’t come close to finishing this frightening, but very tasty creature. I liked it so much that I couldn’t help but ask some locals sitting next to us about the feasibility of moving to the area with my wife and two little boys.

“Well, North County is really expensive,” said the guy who would have looked right at home in a J Crew catalog. “Basically, the closer you get to San Diego the more expensive it gets. Oceanside isn’t too bad, then Carlsbad, Encinitas and Solana Beach will be more expensive than that and things really get crazy in Del Mar and La Jolla.”

My hopes of moving to North County dashed, I knew we’d have to make the most of our visit, so we drove south along the Pacific Coast Highway, taking in peeks of the Pacific when it wasn’t hidden by large homes, shopping and hotels along the way.

I worked off about 5% of my ridiculous breakfast burrito with a short walk in Encinitas’s attractive little town center followed by a longer walk on the beach in Del Mar, a pristine beach community if ever there was one. I watched the surfers, who were out in force on a day when the waves were up to a gnarly 8 feet, and fantasized about winning the next Powerball drawing and moving to this fine place of soaring palm trees, trendy restaurants and stunning Pacific vistas.

Before I knew it, it was lunchtime and since I tend to follow an all taco & burrito diet when I’m in California, we backtracked north a couple miles to Rudy’s Taco Shop, a hole-in-the-wall place in a strip mall in Solana Beach that specializes in carne asada. I was ready for a siesta after scarfing down two of their salty, melt-in-your mouth carne asada tacos, but summoned the energy to press on south to La Jolla, which means “The Jewel” in Spanish.

La Jolla is filled with pricey shops, but we were in town to soak up the natural splendor of the place so we headed straight for the waterfront. I don’t think there are many more scenic places for a stroll anywhere in the country than the area around Scripps Park in La Jolla. There’s a long walkway set up high above the crashing waves of the Pacific below, flanked by neat rows of soaring palm trees.


We walked down to Seal Beach and my sons, ages 3 and 5, got a huge kick out of seeing dozens of seals lying comatose on the beach as though they were sleeping off hangovers. Every few minutes one of them would decide they wanted to change their spot and would hop around awkwardly as the assembled paparazzi fired off shots of them.


A local, who told me I was standing too close to the seals, also mentioned that the seals give birth right on this beach each year from January through March. After my kids had their fill of the seals, we walked a half-mile north to gawk at a colony of sea lions that were all huddled up on top of each other on a huge rock.

There’s been a huge controversy over the supposedly foul smell of bird crap in La Jolla, with many merchants claiming that the smell is scaring away customers, but I didn’t even really notice it other than for a brief moment when we pulled into town. Anyone who dwells on bird crap in a place this beautiful is a little jaded, if you ask me.

After a few hours wandering in La Jolla, we repaired to Bull Taco, a taco stand located up on a bluff above the Cardiff State Park beach that advertises itself as “inauthentic Mexican.” It only seemed fitting to wind down my culinary day the way I started it – with a tortilla in hand. This time, I had three tacos – shrimp curry, sea bass and a lobster, chorizo and bacon beauty. Inauthentic? Maybe, but damn good as well.

We drove further north and enjoyed an extravagant sunset at South Carlsbad State Park beach. On a late Saturday afternoon in December, the beach scene in North County was magical for a cold weather family like us.


Families were taking their Christmas card photos on the beach, no doubt to taunt their cold weather friends, surfers of all ages were emerging from the crashing surf, raving about the “epic” waves and people who drive posh sports cars happily mingled with surf bums living in beat up old camper vans with rusted old California plates. In the fading light, we beat a retreat, intoxicated from a day of Pacific delights, not ready to go home but determined to return one day to this idyllic little corner of America.

[Photo and video credits: Dave Seminara]

Video Captures A Day’s Worth Of Airplane Arrivals At San Diego International

by Grant Martin on

Remember that New York Magazine cover by Ryu Ho-Yeol showing the departure of a score of aircraft from a German runway? It’s actually a composite image stitching all of the aircraft together, and we’ve now the same thing in video format.

Over the Black Friday weekend, filmmaker Cy Kuckenbaker captured every single aircraft landing on one runway at San Diego International airport and merged them into one composite piece of film. It’s an impressive task when you consider the moving background and the number of clips involved. Take a look at the impressive shot above.

Need More Legroom? Buy Some, Says Airline

by Chris Owen on

Legroom in coach continues to be a big issue with air travelers who would love to stretch out like those lucky people in first class. Side-to-side room is also of interest as those flying on airlines without assigned seating hope no one sits next to them. Now, one airline has a way to make it all better.

“Main Cabin Extra makes travel more comfortable by providing you with 4 to 6 inches of additional legroom and Group 1 boarding,” said an email I received from American Airlines encouraging me to pay a bit more for coach seats. That’s an extra fee they don’t have to talk me into either. On American Airlines 767-300, 757 and 777-300ER aircraft I have paid as little as $9 for the pleasure.

Added on up until the airport check-in cut-off time, prices range between $8 and $118 per flight and can be purchased when checking in for a flight through airport self-service machines, AA Reservations, and through select travel agencies.

Different airlines call it by a different name but it all adds up the same: more space.
Ask me to pay $20 for checking a bag (or up to $150 for an overweight bag), $50-$150 per ticket to make a change in plans or any one of a score of other fees and I simply won’t do it. Tell me I can stretch out for a few dollars and I am all for it.

“Airlines aren’t chasing volume anymore, they’re chasing the bottom line,” explains Mike Boyd, chairman of Boyd Group International, an Aviation consulting firm in Evergreen, Colorado, in a Fox News report.

Indeed, holiday airfare shoppers already know that the number of flights is down as airlines choose to fly full planes that generate more profit. Not all that long ago, three classes of seating were available and clearly defined. At the top was first class, followed by business class, then economy coach seating. Today, premium economy is coming more into focus as one of the best travel values available.

“Part of this is this premium economy thing. Business class has become the battleground,” added Boyd. “That went up and up in terms of perks but has become too expensive, so now we’ve gone back to introducing another class – we’ve gone full circle. And internationally, premium economy is what business class was 20 years ago.”

Personally, it surprises me that more travelers don’t choose this inexpensive travel option. There are a limited number of exit row or expanded economy seats available but I almost always find one for a small fee when checking in for a flight.

Another steal, perhaps the gold ring of travel values, is same-day upgrades to first class on the day of departure. Domestic flights are commonly $50 more; international flight upgrades to first class (complete with bragging rights that define one as a savvy air buyer) can be a couple hundred.


[Photo credit- Flickr user Fly For Fun]

Travel Planning Made Easier With 3 Tools We May Already Have

by Chris Owen on
Travel planning commonly starts with a destination. It may be a required business trip to visit a client. Our periodic vacation time might be coming up and we want to explore options that will fit our budget. We might just be daydreaming of a bucket-list destination and want to keep track of what it costs to get there. A variety of smartphone apps are available to help. Those with a stake in any given destination will want us to come visit their place of interest. But at the end of the day, the numbers and information we gather can be difficult to manage. Some tools we might already have available can help.

Spreadsheets are great things for compiling the data we accumulate when researching travel. Take an airline ticket for example. We may start with a price comparison site like Kayak, providing variables like the “From” and “To” destination points, the dates to “depart” and “return” and others.

Very quickly those few initial choice can turn into an unruly mass of choices that may be otherwise difficult to manage as Kayak invites us to check Orbitz, Priceline, Hotwire and others. A spreadsheet via whatever program we may be familiar with can make order of that chaos.

Friends who have been there and done that can beat just about any visitor-generated website reviews. If uncle Bob, who we trust personally and know to give good advice, says destination x is best done a certain way, we take that to the bank and book it.
Uncle Bob may also have contacts at our destination and know the rules and regulations about getting there. On international travel, it’s always a good idea to double-check, but knowing that we don’t need any visas (or that we do and need to apply for them in a timely manner) when planning a cruise in the Mediterranean, for example, is good information to have up front.

Travel sources that have proven themselves to us can gain nearly as much trust too. By consistently following an expert on a certain topic, be that anything from adventure to business or cruise travel, we get to “know” and trust their words of wisdom. Those sources are putting their reputation on the line whenever they make a recommendation and we do well paying attention.

If I were going to Hawaii, for example, my first stop would be Gadling’s Maui-based freelance writer Kyle Ellison who lives there and knows the ins and outs of the destination.

Just considering these three tools can help make sense of travel options, giving us a baseline of reliable information that can serve us well. When it comes to planning hotels, airlines, car rentals and other elements of a trip, having our personal sources of information and our “go to” way of keeping track for all things related can help us get the most from our travel. Nothing beats having a good system in place up front.

The point is to use sources you know and trust. For example, PC users might use One Note, Bing Local Scout, Windows Phone and SkyDrive as we see in this video:




[Photo credit- Flickr user Dr Aek Muldoon]

Vagabond Tales: In Search Of Placerville’s Apples And Outlaws

by Kyle Ellison on

When it comes to travel there are really only two forces that drive us to the destinations we visit.

Either we hear about them from somewhere else, or we stumble upon those we know nothing about.

In the case of the Nicaraguan rodeo, that was a stumble. For nearly anywhere else, however, either we have read about it in a book, learned about in school, watched a documentary about it on television, see it featured in a magazine, or heard from a friend that this place is amazing and you should go visit if you ever get a chance.

In the case of Placerville, California, however, I learned of it through somewhat of a unique channel … eavesdropping.

While working as crew on a sailboat in Hawaii, I once overheard the conversation of a visiting couple about their recent day spent in a place called Placerville.

“I don’t know about that place,” the rotund, slightly graying woman mentioned to her neighbor on the catamaran. “There was something eerie about it. It’s just so far removed from everything, and if I were a mass murderer on the run from the law that’s definitely where I would go. Placerville.”

For reasons unbeknownst to me, this conversation – which I wasn’t even a part of – stuck with me for the better part of a decade. I would see the name “Placerville” on a map and would immediately picture outlaws. Someone would mention the name Placerville and I would feel compelled to ask if they had seen any mass murderers.

Given this strange fascination, I was recently taken aback when my wife asked me if I wanted to go wine tasting and apple picking for the day.

“Sure”, I agreed. “Where are we going?”

“Placerville.”

%Gallery-171913%Now don’t get me wrong, the wine tasting in Placerville is a great reason to visit, but for some reason I was expecting to hang out in a town full of whiskey and gold as opposed to wine and apples. Something about the image of train robbers and prospectors sitting around a campfire sharing thinly sliced Fuji and decanting their zinfandel just doesn’t seem quite right.

Nevertheless, after driving an hour east from Sacramento into the brisk, autumn air of the Sierra Nevada foothills, something caught my eye that suggested a bit of lawlessness still permeated the town.

Right there on Main Street – an historic thoroughfare, which does indeed look like a Wild West throwback – was an effigy of some poor chap hanging from a noose for all the town to see. As I would come to find out, when gold was discovered in nearby Coloma in 1848, the area around Placerville would become ground zero for the California Gold Rush, and everyone from entrepreneurs to ne’er do wells set out West in the hope of striking it rich. For a short period of time, Placerville would actually become the third largest city in all of California.

None of which, however, explains why there is a dead man hanging from a noose smack in the middle of downtown.

As history has indicated, the West in the mid 1800s was somewhat of a lawless arena. Saloons and brothels were built upon the nugget-filled Earth and rough and tumble mountain-folk engaged in Darwinian survival. Despite the degree of lawlessness, however, occasionally criminals were still brought to justice.

And as it just so happens, the place where outlaws would meet their maker was right here in these foothills in an outpost known as Hangtown, their criminal corpses swinging from a tree, which once stood in the same place I find myself standing right now.

Turns out, from 1849-1854 the town of Placerville was officially known as “Hangtown,” due in large part to the copious amount of public hangings, which would take place right along Main Street. One Placerville legend speaks of some thieves who were tried in an impromptu, 30-minute trial and were hung within the hour.

Standing there across from the historic Cary House – a classic brick hotel built in 1857 where the elevator was purchased with a gold nugget found in the basement – I realized that this wasn’t just a place where outlaws went to hide, but this was also a place where outlaws went to die.

That was then, however, and this is now, and seeing as California did away with hanging in 1937, the town’s outlaw nature, it would seem, is something of the past.

While the gold rush history of Placerville is apparent (the hardware store is still proudly an authorized dealer of metal detectors), the main draw, I would find out, is exactly what we came here for in the first place: apples and wine.

Within a short driving distance from the historic downtown there are over 50 vineyards belonging to the El Dorado wine country, as well as over 55 ranchers who make up the Apple Hill Growers Association. The result of all the agricultural abundance is a day trip where you can spend hours meandering the simple backroads, casually sip on zinfandel and syrah, and shop through markets, which teem with fresh produce.

It’s about the most wholesome, least outlaw-laden environment imaginable.

So after half a decade of picturing a town overrun by Unabombers in hiding, I instead found a welcoming gold mining outpost with affable viticulturists and farmers. Granted, there is a hanging puppet swinging in the downtown corridor, but there is also a group of children in a pumpkin patch laughing as they climb a hay bale.

This, I suppose, is precisely the reason we travel; to either confirm the notions we hold of somewhere or dispel what myths we might have believed.

In the case of Placerville, I came to find hermits on the run from the law, and I left with a car full hot apple pies.

Want more travel stories? Read the rest of the “Vagabond Tales” over here.

[Photo Credits: Kyle Ellison]