A Day at the Beach

So it's a month and a half AFTER our October 1 wedding, and we're still getting beautiful days of sunshine and 75 degree weather... well, I can't complain the drizzle on our wedding day because everything else worked out so well. But to take advantage of the lovely day today Kate and I went to the beach! The beach for us usually means heading West over to Half Moon Bay, then South along Hwy. 1 until we find a beach that suits our liking. We got up early, well - 8am early - and packed up some snacks and things and took off. Probably mostly due to the fact that Car Talk was on NPR at the time, we drove a little further than we usually do, eventually stopping at Gazos Creek State Beach. This was a nice find - after a mile or so walking along the beach without another soul in sight (only one set of footprints preceeded us) we came to a rocky outcrop with a nice bench to watch the high-tide waves come smashing into the shore. We think we saw some sort of aquatic dinosaur that has yet to be documented, but it may have been a seal. The wind was good and strong, so we flew my kite for a while before heading to Pescadero in search of lunch.

A while back, my Dad sent me this article from the NY Times about a writer driving from LA to SF searching for the best taco along the way. The long and short of it was that she found it in podunk Pescadero, a little farming community which is about even with Saratoga or San Jose on the coast. I even recommended it to our wedding guest San as a place to stop on his scenic drive, but apparently the "secret" gas station location eluded him. Anyways, here's the relevant excerpt:

"Halfway between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, we turn off into the rolling green hills of Pescadero, a tiny little blip of a town with a handful of general stores, a single bar and one gas station. I have been tipped off that there is a taqueria holed up somewhere in town, and that the ingredients are straight off the farm. I ask around. “There is no sign in the window,” a local offers, “but there is a taqueria in the gas station.”

Inside the gas station, it’s lunchtime and bustling at Taqueria y Mercado de Amigos. Mexican workers squeeze into booths, sipping hibiscus sodas and chatting over the sizzle of the grill and the rhythmic cha-ching of the register. Two cooks work quickly — grilling the shrimp just till the edges blacken, searing the al pastor and drizzling it with hot sauce.

Outside, the quiet of Pescadero is breathtaking. We head up Stage Road to the old cemetery and take the dirt road to the top of the hill. Sitting on the trunk of the car, tacos warming our laps, we find the most beautiful spot yet — the Kelly green pastures rolling and folding straight into the Western sky, the sun beaming down on all that open land. And just when it couldn’t get any better, we realize something else — we’re holding two of the best tacos this side of Mexico."

Yes, I realize it doesn't look like a place you might want to count on for a memorable lunch, but the three tacos we had - carne asada, pollo asada, and al pastor - definitely lived up to their billing. With our bellies full and faces windswept we went home and finished off with a dip in the hot tub. Now it's time to go root for the Broncos - uh oh, it looks like LT just scored a TD for SD. That's bad, I think.