^
Remind me to tell you about the dream I had involving me and you in your baby blue Karmann Ghia as we sped along Mulholland and you reached behind the seat and dug through a cooler of ice to produce a cold and dripping wet cream soda.  Well, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.  But there was another brief surfing segment.

That's the EXACT color, but yours was the coupe, not the cabriolet.  Your paint was really faded and sunbaked and it was pretty ratty overall.  When you picked me up at the Malibu pier and I hopped in I was struck by the pungent mixture of gasoline vapors mixed with Coppertone.  I think these dreams are a result of me listening to lots of surf music, reading about and looking at pictures of surfing and surf culture, and then following all that up with a brisk walk through the forum to check for spam and such right before bed.  It manifests in these bizarre dreams.

Beautiful...

I'm pretty sure I just heard this song blasting from the single speaker on that pickup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vDylnxQP5k

San Mateo is all suburban strip malls nowadays but it has nice beaches and it's the only place to get a decent bowl of ramen in NorCal.

It actually used to be amazing... there was a mini amusement park with a small zoo in the 60's and my friend who grew up in the area said it was the number one stop along the 101 between the Bay Area and LA. It switched management and got knocked down in the 70's to develop a Danish themed hotel chain which is now the current building with windmill. There's another one off the I-5 in Merced and I think there were at least 4 or 5 locations at some point. My friend claims they used to have the best homemade pea soup in the 60's.

Next time, take a 10 min. detour to Los Banos and go to Wool Growers Restaurant!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/wool-growers-restaurant-los-banos

The Madonna Inn is great! You have to eat dinner in one of the pink leather-clad horseshoe banquettes at the Gold Rush Steak House and Silver Bar (cocktails are served in oversized chalices), it's like Liberace on steroids! They actually serve a killer breakfast (great corned beef hash) at the Copper Cafe. Make sure you visit the bathroom too and pee into the waterfall, haha. Which room did you book (ask for one with the Flintstones style rock showers) and are you continuing down the coast? If so, be sure to stop in nearby Solvang for an afternoon and have lunch at The Hitching Post in Casmalia; best charbroiled steaks in California! Also stop at Cold Spring Tavern off Stagecoach Rd in Santa Barbara for a drink. We just spent a few nights in the area last month but we stayed at the Kon-Tiki in Pismo Beach.

Last edited by Oliver (2015-05-05 16:20:04)