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Splendid Lake Tahoe Weekend: Boating & Partying – May 2025

Splendid Lake Tahoe weekend: boating & partying; getting there: JSX flight to Reno, like catching a bus; liver punishment briefly postponed; Tahoe Beach Club; oysters and filé gumbo at Oyster Bar, Stateline Nevada; living it up on the lake with Eric and Renée; Steve, the Cold Plunge Hero of Emerald Bay; exactly why Fun Ain’t Easy; Vesper martinis to die for (or from); The Lucky Beaver and The Naked Fish; Lest we Forget add-on: Solo in Durban: my solo trip for Julie’s 60th Birthday; Up Next: Singapore and Bawah Reserve, Indonesia, yay!

Lake Tahoe Weekend

Our friends Ellie and Steve have a fabulous holiday home at Tahoe Beach Club on Lake Tahoe, Nevada. To surprise us while we were spending a week with them in California, they had booked JSX flights from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport – a small airport conveniently close to their Newport beach condo – to Reno, Nevada.

Boarding a JSX semi-private jet flight to Reno

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Newport Beach, California, May 2025

Getting to Newport Beach, Orange County; Malibu still a no-go after 2025 fires; LA still a great big freeway; Roy’s Death Row birthday menu; ferry to Balboa Island; swilling Chablis at Circle Hook, sublime soft serve at Somi Somi, unphotogenic raclette at Basilic; palm tree trivia: feeble fronds and a dearly departed arborist; sublime casual dining at JOEY’s; lunch “on the beach” at Montage Resort, Laguna Beach; purveyors of boots and artichokes at San Juan Capistrano; huge thanks to our amazing hosts – next up, Lake Tahoe!

Steve, Ellie, Roy and a trio of Vesper martinis

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California Road Trip to Santa Barbara – Part Two

Road trip to Santa Barbara; Big Sur closed, and 16 miles of denial; the alternative: Salinas Valley, the salad bowl of the world; the Mexican at San Simeon; not visiting Hearst Castle; San Luis Obispo Bay – say that 10 times, quickly; the very big rock at Morro Bay; declaring a lucky day; my main problem with road trips; San Luis Obispo: two missions (church and café); Los Olivos, but alas no wine; Solvang, a little Denmark; beautiful Santa Barbara; Stearns Wharf and sausages; Derek at Joe’s Café, the world’s most generous – and ethical – barman; life-saving meatloaf and short-rib; Newport Beach, here we come!  

Prologue

This is a huge one! But I have managed to cover the whole of the rest of our Pacific Highway road-trip… so hang in to the end for some gorgeous pics of Roy and Santa Barbara. Here’s a preview:

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Big Sur Road Closure Denial

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California Road Trip, May 2025: Part 1

California road trip to Monterey via Santa Cruz; preview of 3 theme parks; the road less travelled to Santa Cruz; subdued fun at The Boardwalk, Santa Cruz; On the Carousel… or not; and then we have an ice cream; lunch at Carmel-by-the-Sea; whisky and wines of the best; a visceral flinch; Old Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey; smelly old sea lions; Osteria Al Mare; scenes from Cannery Row and a couple of Steinbeck quotes

For my previous post about how we got to San José to embark on this California road trip (spoiler alert: by train), plus some almost inconceivably lovely photos of Roy, click here.

To Monterey via Santa Cruz

Today’s sightseeing felt like visiting a series of three theme parks, albeit with very different themes. Here’s a quick preview:

#1 The first was an actual amusement park, The Boardwalk at Santa Cruz.

#2 The second was the almost impossibly cute town of Carmel.

#3 And the third was Monterey’s Cannery Row, themed around Steinbeck’s novel of the same name.

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Train to San José, California, May 2025

Train to San José: all aboard the Amtrak overnight choo-choo; dinner in the diner; dissing Reese’s and devouring Frank & Louie’s; Rock Me (un)Gently; stunning San José station; Santana Row and shopping

It’s an overnight journey of 19.5 hours from Portland, OR to San José CA. With a couple of hours to spare before our 2.30pm departure, we enjoyed the comfort of Portland Union Station’s Metropolitan Lounge. (Here is our Amtrak eTicket.)

Lured by the help-yourself drinks and snacks bar, I succumbed not only to the Reese’s peanut butter cups but also to Miss Vickie’s Jalapeño Kettle Cooked Chips. (Purely in the interest of cultural research, of course. Fortunately, though our local supermarkets in Western Australia do stock Reese’s peanut butter cups, I’m now relieved to know that they’re fairly yuck; definitely not worth the calorie and chemical splurge.)

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Two Nights in Portland, Oregon – May 2025

Two nights in Portland: Bypassing Tillamook and taking the road less travelled to Oregon’s capital, Portland; desolation in downtown Portland; more trams than people, and a weird weather machine; hanging on grimly: hurrah for Zara; Oregon Maritime Museum, closed as usual; the kindness of cabbies; Elon doesn’t care, but Uber does; dinner at Huber’s; Washington Park and Nob Hill; fragile waiter at Andina restaurant, saving us a trip to Peru

Having spent two nights regrouping and doing laundry at Oceanside (click here), we drove the rental car up the road to Tillamook, home of a famous cheese factory. (Interestingly, or perhaps not, ice cream from the Tillamook Creamery, which is part of the factory, is available in Australia from Woolworths.) The factory only opens to visitors at 10am on a Monday, which was too late for us, sadly; Roy had planned to return the car by 11am.

There were two possible routes to Portland. We chose the northern one, Route 26 (Sunset Highway), which winds spectacularly through national parkland forests, to reach the capital of Oregon in just over an hour and a half.

Two Nights in Portland’s Harlow Hotel

As you can see from the pictures and the blurb in the poster below, Harlow Hotel (built in 1882) in Portland’s Pearl District has been sympathetically restored and redeveloped in our beloved Art Deco style. Taking into account the bare-bones room amenities, palpable under-staffing and minimalist service, I would give it a 3/5.

 

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Washington Coast, May 2025 Part 2: Ocean Shores to Oceanside

Washington Coast highlights: Close, but no seafood for us from Brady’s Oysters; coffee and donuts at Westport; an accidental lighthouse; oysters Southbend; fun and museums at Long Beach; sorrow, vituperation and f&$@-all of interest on the Long Beach peninsula; disappointment at Cape Disappointment; grim wenches at Hotel Shelburne (1906); Timberlands at Cannon Beach; rainy interlude with halibut cheeks at Oceanside

For my unmissable previous post on exploring the magnificent Washington Coast by car, click here.

First stop today on the way from Ocean Shores to Seaview was Brady’s Oysters at Bay City, near Westport. Beautifully signposted from Route 101, this would be a good spot to spend a lot of money on seafood, whether fresh, smoked or tinned. It is also a good spot just to use the restroom, and not to spend a lot of money on seafood.

Brady’s Oysters, Bay City Washington
Basking in sunshine at Brady’s Oysters

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Washington Coast Part 1: Forks to Ocean Shores

Washington coast and the Olympian Peninsula, Route 101; Olympian National Park and Crescent Lake; Pacific Inn at Forks of Twilight fame; bones of the rain forest at La Push and Ruby Beach; clam chowder at Pacific Beach; Japanese whisky at serendipitous Seabrook; bleak beach at Ocean Shores; Canterbury Inn and the Oyehut Bay Grill

Recap, and the Olympic National Park

As you may remember from my last post (if not, click here), we comfortably coached it from Vancouver, Canada to spend our first night on US soil at Seattle.

From Seattle, Roy pointed the rental car in the direction of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. After a coffee-stop detour to picturesque Port Townsend (again, click here), we continued along the 101 to the relatively featureless Forks, apparently named for the forking of three rivers. (Forks is where the Twilight series was set, though only a few scenes were actually filmed there.)

Route 101 to Forks, through Olympic National Park

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