andy & shaya

With the Vafaei’s just having bought a house in Encinitas, CA about 30 minutes north of San Diego, we were due for a visit to check out their new home. Since they needed their RL transported, we offered to drive it down for them with Sasha and Zeeba along for the ride. The drive was long and boring- 14 hours on the first day and another 7 on the second. To pass the time we listened to an audiobook of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown until Shaya was too stressed to handle any more of it. With Yelp as our guide, we had delightfully greasy sandwiches at an empty diner in Roseburg, OR and fresh delicious soft tacos in Santa Monica. And between myself and Zeeba, we had to keep one of the car windows cracked pretty much the entire trip.

Neither of us had any idea what to expect of Encinitas. What we found was a beautiful Southern California town with nice homes, nice people and a spectacular beach. Shaya and I particularly enjoyed the charming downtown area along Highway 101, the Pacific Coast Highway. There were a bunch of cute shops and cozy restaurants, french bakeries and coffee shops. Over the course of the week, we had a delicious dinner at Trattoria I Trulli, great coffee at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and delectable pie at Pannikin Coffee & Tea. Of course with Katia’s fantastic home cooking we only had one chance to dine out!

All in all a pretty idyllic place to live and we can’t wait to return, home!