We escape the summer heat earlier than planned for this road trip after receiving the disrupting news: a permanent move to the coast is advised due to extreme allergies associated with the desert and its plant life. 
This road trip to Santa Rosa, California, was intended to be a surprise for Eric’s 40th birthday. But it became a road trip of Surprises, Searches and Adventures.
The Adventures. We leave Arizona in the early morning, looking in the rear view mirror at a beautiful monsoon sky with the sun breaking through. The first day out is long, but rewarding at the end of the day with a cool evening, an ocean breeze and a view of the Ventura marina. We walk the beach and visit the downtown area where we find our first mission--Mission Buenaventura.
The second day out we head north, stopping in Santa Barbara to visit our second mission: Old San Barbara Mission, with its great architecture and art, paintings, sculptures and statues--the colonial art collection is rich and varied. Lunch are crepes at Pacific Crepes--not to be missed if you find yourself in downtown Santa Barbara!
The next stop is Santa Ines, outside the faux-Danish town of Solvang. Franciscan Fathers take excellent care of the mission, giving life to an active parish--the morning we are there a wedding is taking place. We drive through the town of Buellton, home of Anderson’s split pea soup, to reach the mission and yes, we stop to try the soup!
The last stop for the day is San Luis Obispo. The town is pleasant with an ocean breeze. After driving most of the day, we walk out all the kinks and find Mama’s Meatballs for dinner. It is a most surprising find--a great little Italian place with a menu from which we want to order everything! The Mission San Luis Obispo is found in the middle of downtown and is a working parish. January marks a transformation in the mission--it opens it doors and provides overflow housing for a month to the homeless. 
Before arriving at the Silicon Valley for the weekend we stop to visit Mission San Miguel and The Rios Caledonia Adobe. The mission is beautiful, busy and houses Padres. The Adobe, built in 1835 by the Indians, was used as a private residence for a family of fourteen in 1851, was sold in 1862 and in 1868 was used for stagecoach stop, tavern and inn. Local legend has Jesse James, the Delton Brothers and Tiburcio Vasquez visiting the inn. In 1886 it was once again a residence but also a school, post office, mattress-making/upholstery shop, dressmaker and tailor shop. In 1895 a family lived in the adobe and ran a dairy farm on the property. In 1903 walls were built and a garden court with cacti and shrubs were added, and it was opened to the public. In 1915 the original stagecoach road became Highway 101. Today Rios-Caledonia is California Historical Landmark #936 and a San Luis Obispo County Park. After our visit to the old adobe we are told that Dos Amigos is a great place to eat and it is lunch time! Mission Soledad was the last mission of the day.
Once we arrive in the Silicon Valley we look around and see Yahoo, Google, etc., etc... a different world. We explore the small towns with their quaint but busy downtowns--Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Palo Alto. All inland but with a cool and refreshing breeze and the temperatures only in the 80‘s!
After a quiet weekend we are off to the hustle, bustle and crowds of Santa Cruz. We drive to Carmel/Monterey area searching for the Carmel Mission. It is truly one of the most beautiful missions.
Finally, on the day of the surprise, we leave early but make a mistake heading north to Santa Rosa. Instead of crossing the Richmond/Rafael Bridge we stay on the 101 straight through downtown San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge. It is beautiful driving across the bridge but it does make us a little late.
The SURPRISE is on all of us when we end up meeting in the parking lot--literally in the same parking spot of our rendezvous location. It can’t be—it was, right in front of us--ERIC! As we turn into the parking lot of Oliver’s Thomas says, is that Eric right in front of us? We turn right into the parking lot into a tandem parking spot—so we pull all the way forward. And what is happening behind us becomes the surprise. Eric turns left into the parking lot and pulls right behind our car saying to Jan, that guy took my parking space and that car is from AZ and the license is GO4EVER, and that is my mom getting out of the car! SURPRISE! Okay, it doesn’t go exactly as planned but not only is Eric surprised-- we all are!
Surprise over—on to see Dozer. Remember Dozer? My new best friend, now my tallest friend from Safari West. Lunch at the park is our way to get in for a visit to Dozer. We spend at least a half hour taking pictures and encouraging Dozer to participate in the visit! 
Our first full day with Eric and Jan we take a drive--we find ourselves in the middle of the redwoods in the morning and in the afternoon we are driving along the coast! That evening Eric’s birthday dinner is at Khoom Lanna Thai Restaurant downtown Santa Rosa. If anyone is in Santa Rosa, don’t miss this Thai! 
The second day brings a short trip to Sonoma for the last of the twenty-one missions. First, we stop at Quarryhill Botanical Gardens--located on the hill surrounded by grapevines.
The next stop is lunch at El Molinos, for world-class Mexican food in a converted service station. Also, we check out the Fairmont in this little town close to Sonoma, and even find a very small Starbucks.
Sonoma is a quaint town with a square in the middle of town surrounded by vineyards. We visit the Sebastiani Winery with the purpose of buying a bottle of wine for Judi. She was okay with scaling the courtyard walls at home after the UPS guy threw over a package that could not have withstood the monsoon rains--thank you, Judi!
Too soon we start back to Santa Rosa and dinner at Rustic, located in the Francis Ford Coppola Winery--an Italian dinner outside looking over the vineyards. 
Time just goes by too fast--it is now time to head south back to the desert. We take in more missions in on the route south, Mission San Rafael, Mission San Juan Bautista. Of course, we stop in San Miguel at Dos Amigos for another great lunch!
The SEARCH is of coastal towns. It seems like one little beach town on top of another little beach town. The beach neighborhoods are jammed with one house on top of another, with streets that are almost impassable. We finding that one town runs into another, so that we never know when we leave one and enter another. From San Diego to San Francisco the traffic is heavy and the small towns are crowded and too busy.
(Copyright 2011)
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