This weekend, Irving and I headed up to the California Central Coast for a little Easter Getaway. We stayed in Avila Beach, which is about three hours north of Los Angeles. Along the way, we stopped at Pea Soup Andersen’s! I’ve been wanting to stop there for ages!! 
It’s a California Road Trip destination and they’re known for…. Pea Soup! 
It was far too early in the morning to enjoy any soup, but we had fun looking around the gift shop and buying some canned soup for later. I’m sure it’s not quite as good, but we couldn’t resist. This is what we’ll look like when we cook the soup! BAHAHA! 
We “conveniently” saw the LuggageBase.com store along the route (turns out Irving mapped it ahead of time and was planning on stopping all along!) This is the website where we buy all of our luggage and travel gear from. Great prices, fast shipping and good people. It’s always nice to put a face to an online retailer. It’s just a family owned company who started a business that just happens to be on the web. We forget sometimes that online companies can be mom and pop shops sometimes. It was really nice to visit. We bought a few things while we were in there too. 
When we finally pulled in to Avila Beach, we went for a walk to explore. 
The beach was really pretty and not too crowded. I never put my toes in the water, but it looked really nice. 
The boardwalk area was really beautiful. It’s all relatively new, and commercially untouched. So refreshing coming from LA. 
There are three main piers and we walked to the end of each of them. We didn’t have much of an agenda on Saturday, so it was nice to just walk, chat and relax.
From the end, we got a good glimpse of our hotel for the night too. So pretty up on the cliffs. 
Wait for it…. Ready….
It just felt right…. 
Under the pier is a second level, and you could see starfish clinging to the posts! So weird! 
My date for the weekend life! 
Our walk continued along the bay.
We saw a sign for “BJ’s Restaurant” and I’m like “YAY! PAZOOKI!” But alas, that was not the case. at all. 
But we did find Sea Lions hanging out under that pier! You could get really close to them too! 
Later that night, we met up with Jake and Janie (Irving’s aunt and uncle, whom we haven’t seen in a year!!) It was so nice spending some time with them again! While we caught up and chatted, we baked some Easter Treats in the hotel. 
PS. How scary does the dough boy look?! 
Before… 
After! 
We enjoyed the cookies while looking at the ocean from our room. 
After our snack, we headed out for some more coastal exploring. First stop was Pismo Beach. 
There was a pretty wedding going on too! We stopped to listen to the vows. Creepers! 
Look! A mom, dad and baby goose! See the baby in the middle? 
We followed them for a while, it was adorable! 
After sight seeing a little more, we pulled into the Oak Pit BBQ for dinner. We read rave reviews on yelp and were very excited to try it! The owner took our picture for us too! Thanks Sammy!
Lots of wildlife sightings this weekend! 
Stay tuned for Day 2 later! It’s a picture heavy weekend, so I’m splitting it up.
What’s the strangest wild animal you ever saw on vacation? We saw Bears on the side of the road in Russia!
Kelocity.com 
That looks like such a fun vacation!!!
Strangest animal I saw on a vacation was a moose. My family stayed in a cabin in Yellowstone Nat’l Park, and we woke up and heard a strange noise, walked to the window, looked out, and saw a HUGE moose eating some food under our window.
We saw bison on that trip also, but I think the moose was the highlight simply for its proximity to us.
I LOVE your pic of the sea lion sleeping. I kind of want to go snuggle up with it. Does that make me completely crazy?
Great pictures! Looks like a really nice place to visit!
Love,
Anne
Thanks! next time you come visit you guys should go up there. It’s so beautiful. The drive is nice too..