Bay Area Backroads #41: Pescadero

We took our first Bay Area Backroads trip this weekend, starting with card number 41 in the deck, because, you know, we're logical like that. Note that card number 1 in the deck is Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is just a bit far away for a day trip if your wife has to run 6 miles in the morning for her Team in Training training (have YOU donated?).

It was a beautiful, warm, non-foggy day (note that these terms are all relative; it was warm for here, not necessarily for wherever you are), and we have quickly learned that the direction in which you go depends highly upon these factors; if it is a cold, foggy day, you have to go east, whereas if it's a day like yesterday, you must head toward the ocean and enjoy it while it's enjoyable. So we went west. And south.

Alison wanted to go down to Monterey to see the seahorse exhibit, but the Annual Santa Cruz Mountains Wildfire happens to be this weekend, and we don't want to take the ashmatic lungs through that. However, if you stay close to the city, you're, well, close to the city. What's the perfect compromise? Pescadero, of course!

This town is about an hour away from San Francisco, just a mile or so inland from the ocean, and very typical of small towns in the west. That is to say, everybody knows everybody, there's only a few stores, and the town is full of inveterate racists, misogynists, and homophobes (just kidding about that last one, I'm sure there's only a few of them around!). But that's not where this trip starts.

We totally missed the turn-off to Pescadero, because obviously the giant Pescadero sign was not sufficient. We drove south of the town for a ways, pulling off at one of those brown "Coastal View" signs typical of the Pacific Coast. As far as we could tell, getting to this coastal view entailed traipsing across somebody's property, but there's no arguing with the Man, as they say. Because it was such a strange, out-of-the-way access point, and because it wasn't one of the more developed state beaches, it turned out to be a great, secluded spot. We ate our home-made lunch of peanut butter +/- jelly sandwiches, then went looking in the tide pools. This is one of Alison's favorite activities, searching for anemones and urchins and starfish and crabs and whatnot; "creatures." We saw three starfish (two live, one dead), and got to discover what dead sea urchins look and feel like.



We had the place to ourselves for probably about 30 minutes before anybody else came down, which is probably practically unheard of for the bay area coast on a weekend. Also, these kelp forests were super neat:


After lunch we continued south to visit the Pigeon Point Light Station, the tallest operating lighthouse on the Pacific coast. It was pretty neat, and worth the stop, and the guy in the store was very nice and talkative, but if you're not interested in lighthouses, coastal views, or history, this might not be the place for you. It was built in 1872 and has a hostel onsite that you can stay in.


After the lighthouse we tried going down to the beach right near there, but it was covered in seaweed, flies, and fishermen. We drove back to the north, this time successfully seeing the giant Pescadero sign, and drove inland toward town. Luckily for us, this weekend just happened to be the Pescadero Arts and Fun Festival, a little fair type thing with a bunch of arts and crafts booths, food stands, and a live music stage. It was fun (as advertised), and Alison got some screaming deals on some handbags made out of repurposed fabrics from Ja Ja Ja Purses. The lady in the booth was super nice, and told us all about the purses and such. Hooray for reusing and keeping things out of the landfill! We left after some ice cream in a fresh waffle cone, and visited the business district.

The business district of the town is only a block long, and features one restaurant/bar, a church, an antique store, and a couple markets. We walked past all of the businesses to Pescadero Creek, which was flowing under the bridge. On our way back we stopped at one of the markets and got a steaming hot loaf of garlic artichoke bread (artichokes seem to be a local specialty) from a local bakery and a little thing of soft goat cheese from a local cheesery. We ate them out back behind the store, in a little grassy picnic area next to the creek with some apple trees scattered around. Beautiful. We stopped in at Duarte's, and had a beer at the bar (read the history of the place, it's great...although they don't mention the fire in the early part of the 20th century, during which the fire fighters apparently took special care to save the bar itself from burning; that bar is still in use today).


We left Pescadero, picking up the Echo from its spot next to a pumpkin field, and drove back north toward Half Moon Bay. Our Backroads card mentions the Pescadero Marsh, a prime bird-watching spot, but we're not interested in such things and so skipped it. I wanted to get to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for dinner. We stopped near the pier in Half Moon Bay when Alison screamed, scaring the driver before explaining that she'd seen a herd of sea creatures out near the pier. She ran over there and got a picture of the bunch of seals that were lolling about. I ran back to the car for binoculars, and by the time I got there they had moved out further.


We moved on to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, where we wanted to sit outside, but were thwarted by the 45-minute wait (despite the fact that at least 3 tables were empty, cleaned, and reset with fresh tableware). We opted for the bar area, where there was no wait, and sat down to a table with a nice view. After waiting about 10 minute for anybody to acknowledge my presence, I went to the bar to ask if we were going to be served, where I was made to wait by the bartender while he finished having a conversation with another group of guests (conversation's fine, but when somebody comes up to actually get some service, and you aren't doing anything important, well, the service is more important). Menus in hand, I thought we were sure to get served...after another five minutes we just left. They missed out on our custom that day, their loss.

We stopped one last time on our way back to the city at a farm stand to get some fresh produce. They had all sorts of organic stuff, but we started getting suspicious when Alison spied some mangoes and bananas, neither of which is grown locally. Apparently only a few things in their stand were actually grown by them, which seems kind of terrible for a farm stand. Another couple got there a few minutes after us, only to be told that the farm stand was "closed." What?

The results of this trip: Pescadero was neat, a nice little town with lots of picnic tables and people sitting around and chatting. Half Moon Bay was not neat, and seemed to be populated by people who couldn't be bothered. Go to Pescadero, skip Half Moon Bay. Especially for next year's Arts and Fun Festival!