A Weekend Away: Cambria

This past weekend we went over to Cambria to spend the weekend…without child. That’s always nice. Don’t get me wrong, I love our little dude but having some time off from the “always on” life of a parent to a 17 month old is pretty awesome!

Annie and I have been to Cambria dozens of times together but never stayed overnight. Living in Paso Robles makes Cambria a very fun and close by day trip. We love Moonstone Drive so we had decided to stay right across from the ocean at Little Sur Inn. Our friends Megan and Brock (who are also the folks that took care of Sammy while we were gone) had recommended the place and it was outstanding. I’d recommend it to anyone.

As luck would have it we were able to get a second floor room with full ocean view. As someone who finds the sea extremely therapeutic, I am always willing to spend a little extra to get full ocean view rooms. When we showed up Friday evening we were just in time for the sunset on the balcony. Rather than go cruise around we hung out in the room enjoying the view and some food we had brought with us.

One of our goals was to not use the car once we got to the hotel. We accomplished that and didn’t use the car again until we left Sunday morning for home. Anyways, on Saturday morning we headed out for a walk and ended up all the way down on the north end of Moonstone Drive at the park. A nice long walk always clears the cobwebs.

We ate lunch at Moonstone Bar & Grill and dinner Saturday night was at the Sea Chest Restaurant. Lucky for us our hotel was right next to the restaurant so we could go wait in line. Yes…wait in line. People get there an hour or two prior to the restaurant opening. It’s first come first serve and they only take cash or check. We had never been before and had an absolute blast with the guys behind the bar. Be sure to take some wine or beer so you can drink up while you wait in line. Great way to meet other people too!

When we weren’t out for a walk or at one of the above mentioned restaurants, we hung out on the balcony and I got some writing done. We went to Cambria with the idea to relax and get a little bored…you know what I mean? Nowadays I don’t think we allow ourselves to get bored from time to time and it’s not only okay to do so but for someone like me it’s mandatory.

Sunday morning we hung around until Indigo Moon Restaurant in downtown Cambria opened for brunch. We had never been there before either and glad we went. Great little spot that has a good menu and mimosas. We like mimosas. On our way out of town we stopped in to see the folks at Stolo Family Winery. Another place that we had not been.

Pay attention wineries…as I had been posting pictures and things from Cambria on to Facebook and Twitter, the folks at Stolo tweeted me and said that they’d love to meet us so we should go in and taste if we can make it. I had seen them on Twitter before and obviously they had seen me, but the fact that they simply extended a polite (not pushy) invite into the winery we followed through.

So what’s the ROI of social media? Building relationships, being kind, and being communicative equals making money. That is a fact. They invited us. They responded quickly when I tweeted back with questions. We went and tasted. We had a good time and enjoyed the wines. We bought wine. Now I’m talking about it and I guarantee at least a handful of people will now go there because I’m talking about it. Word of mouth. Boom! ROI. You’re welcome (I will do a blog post on Stolo Wednesday which will go over the wines and all that).

With that out of the way, thank you to Brock and Megan for taking care of our little guy so we could get a weekend away. I also will say thank you to Little Sur Inn, Sea Chest Restaurant, Moonstone Bar & Grill, Indigo Moon Restaurant, and Stolo Family Winery for the awesome customer service. It’s not often you can go to five different spots in one little, quaint town and have each spot be as awesome as these were. Cambria must be on to something.

Cheers folks!