We hit the road in the morning after
saying our goodbyes to Briana at home and taking Joshua to school.
Breakfast consisted of a sandwich and omelette from Paradise Bakery.
The initial portion of the drive really wasn't too bad as there was
no traffic leaving the Phoenix area and the trip down I-10 was pretty
uneventful. As we approached the Riverside, CA area I started
looking at the Brewery map (courtesy of the Pint Labs Brewery Map
application I have installed on my phone) to find a good place to
have lunch. Unfortunately, the 'search by location' feature of the
application would continuously error out with Java IO errors so I
couldn't refine my search any. I basically had to rely on the
location based services on the phone to locate the breweries that
were close to me.
We settled on a burger joint called
Eureka. There I enjoyed a couple of beers from Hangar 24, a local
brewery of the area. The burgers were very tasty and the service was
good as well. It was nice to get off of the road for a bit and have
a beer and some tasty beverages.
From there, we turned slightly to the
left to head towards Paso Robles. Okay – side discussion. What is
the proper way to pronounce 'Paso Robles?' I have always looked at
the pronunciation as a spanish type word (pah-soh row-bless). But
when we hit the town, we heard (and read) it being stated as pah-soh
row-bulls. So which is it?
Instead of taking the 101 and other
roads along the coast to head up north, we took I-5 and other
highways to reach via state route 46. I've got to say that going
that way is not so good on the eyes. Just vast fields of crops and
basic desolated land.
Now, we didn't stay in Paso Robles and
instead Tammy found a nicely renovated older hotel in Atascadero,
called The Carlton Hotel. From check-in to check-out the service was
fantastic and the amenities were very good. From the pillow top
mattress with the down comforter and pillows to the 4 piece bath with
jacuzzi tub. They even let us park in the loading zone of the hotel
since they had a deal with local police.
We weren't sure what to eat, so we
opted for a local pizza joint (emphasis on local). They served beer
there as well (Central Coast Pizza) so it was an OK choice of a
place. The pizza was your standard fare, and the experience was
generally good until we encountered a bitter owner at the bar that
had 'a few words to say' to one of his employees because she couldn't
remember the details of what kind of red wines they carried at the
establishment. It was close enough to walk there, so we were able to
get a little bit of exercise :). Of course, I had to get a Firestone
Walker DBA while there.
On the way back to the hotel, we
stopped by Molly Pitchers. A local brewery that served 4 of their
own style brews in a nice relaxing atmosphere. My plan is to try and
get a sampler of brews at all of the locations that provide it, and
this stop proved to be a good start to that plan. Good place with
decent brews, and if in the area again I would stop by for more. No
food, but most places I would not expect to have food unless it was a
larger more established location.
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