This was president’s day weekend, and I wanted to have a getaway. It’s been almost 6 months since we went for a family trip. Lack of vacation days and time, led us to making a quick booking 2-3 days before the weekend.
We did not want to fly, and driving too far, will just end up being too hectic, so Sree figured Cambria which is a beach town about 3-4 hrs down south would be a good destination.
We booked an AirBnB 2-3 days before the weekend began.
Day 1
On Saturday, after lunch we started off to Cambria. The drive was beautiful. We reached Cambria around 5:30 pm and checked into our airBnB. It was a good idea to reach here before dark, or else it would be a bit challenging to find the place in the dark. But they had white lights outside which was very helpful too.The place was really nice with all the amenities and a fully stocked kitchen. It was surrounded with trees. It had a deck and I think the most interesting aspect of the house was that, it had these stained glass windows in multiple places and an old reading/writing nook with an antique table. This was a 2 bedroom home with one bedroom downstairs and the other one up. One of them, had a king bed and we decided to just use that for the 4 of us.
After moving in the luggage, we decided to check out the small downtown in the east village of Cambria. It spanned a few blocks of old coastal town buildings and shops on one straight road.
We found a Mexican place (Las Cambritas) to have dinner. The food was great, but heavy and a lot. My Mango margarita was perfect.
We wanted to get some milk and bread and the only grocery store in Cambria, the SOTO’s earth market has everything you need. I got a Brioche bread thinking it was normal bread only to realize it’s not later. As always we had forgotten our sunscreen and I got a small stick of it. This will add to our sunscreen stash at home.
We came back home and called it a day by snuggling into the king bed and instantly falling asleep.
Day 2
During the early hours of the morning, I felt Pranav was running temperature and on checking realized he had 100.4. We gave him Tylenol and he went back to sleep. Thankfully we had remembered to carry it with us.
We all woke up around 8:30 am, and Pranav looked fine after a good night sleep. We enjoyed looking out of the windows at the trees watching the sun rays shining through the stained glass. Myself and the kids started working on one of the smaller jigsaw puzzles in the house.
Mid way- Pranav told he had ear pain and me and Sree realized that this could be ear infection. There was no urgent care in Cambria, so we all got dressed and left to
Morro bay.
After a quick visit there, we went to the Rite aid to collect the prescribed antibiotics, and also got ourselves two beach chairs. We reached Morro beach, and it was windy and cold! But the kids were so excited. They made impressions on the sand with the sand toys and wanted Sree/me to accompany them to the waves every now and then. But the cutest pass time for the kids was the run towards these sea birds who flocked now and then near us. The birds would fly away, and the kids would repeat this.
Me and Sree sat bearing the cold thanking that we had beach towels to wrap us, jackets and chairs to sit on.
After the beach, we went to moonstone pathway in Cambria and walked there for a while. The scenery was beautiful and it was nice to just walk around.
We got tired around 4, and we headed back home to get cleaned up. We quickly snacked on some bread from yesterday, and got dressed for dinner.
Before dinner, we walked around and got into one of the gift shops in east village. It had a lot of handmade gifts. I happened to pass a girl who looked familiar and I immediately realized she could be Divya Thellore - with whom I had corresponded via chat for dance. I pinged her and she confirmed it was indeed her. So we met in the gift shop and said our hi’s. Of all the places, we meet in Cambria :)
The kids started feeling hungry, and we decided to go to Lynn’s for dinner. I ordered their scampi which is a shrimp curry with rice. Sree ordered lemon chicken which was really tasty and the kids had mac n cheese & pasta. They also ordered milk shake which was so big, and was very good.
We stopped at the grocery store - Soto’s earth store and got bread and milk again and Sree got some beer to try.
Once we reached home, me and Sree watched Kim’s convenience on Netflix while the kids watched something on the iPad.
I wanted to do the jigsaw puzzle, the bigger one, and Pranav and me did it for a while - we just sorted the pieces and called it a day.
Day 3
Pranav was coughing so badly in the night that it took him a while to get rested sleep. Finally after a bottle of milk, he slept soundly.We all woke up around 8:30 am again.We packed our stuff, got dressed, took some pics on the deck and checked out of the house.
We went to Cambria downtown and walked around East village checking out some shops along the street. I got some interesting wind chimes. We also checked out the antique store and the tiny house which we were originally considering for staying via AirBnB. Next time, may be the tiny house :)
We ordered food from the Soto’s earth market as togo, and went to a nearby cafe, to get some scones for the kids. 
On our way back, we saw signs of Red Moose cookie company, and followed it to a storage location where they are running this from. They had some interesting varieties of cookies.I got some root beer cookies, molasses cookies and almond and chocolate cookies.
We went down to West village and I checked out a pottery place which we thought might be interesting and we also got our usual souvenir magnet of Cambria from the Shell gas station in West village.
Around 1, we started our ride back home and reached home by 5:00 pm.
This was one of the most relaxing vacations we have had. Short and sweet.
