If you have not been to Atascadero’s Hidden Springs Christmas Tree Farm, you’re missing out on a true holiday experience.
I can say this with certainty because, being a fake-tree person (hellooo, Target Wondershop!), bundling up in warm coats and trekking through a Christmas tree farm hasn’t traditionally been on my holiday bucket list. So what a treat it was to finally go with the kids! Leashed dogs are welcome, too.
You’re visiting the picturesque wine country on California’s Central Coast. Let me set the scene for you:
Clear blue skies give a stunning backdrop to rolling hills dotted with twisty oaks and row after row of vineyard grapes.
You have your sunhat on and your fall outfit is on point. It’s a good day. You can’t wait to clink to the future with the hubby and do some much-needed wine tasting.
But …
You have your kids with you. Who get bored. Easily.
What do you do?
Enter the magic of the kid-friendly winery.
On our Slocal scouting trip for family-friendly places to eat in Cayucos, we chose Schooners for lunch and Honey Girl Cafe for dessert.
For kiddos like mine who may not have the patience for a full-fledged grownup hike, the Harmony Headlands Trail is a totally doable 1.5-mile trek. Just enough for the fam to get outside, get some fresh air, and see what there is to see off the beautiful Highway 1 Discovery Route.
Harmony Headlands is a 784-acre State Park reaching out toward the coast. You can hike there from 6 a.m. to sunset and there’s dirt parking with room for about 10 cars at the entrance off southbound Highway 1, five minutes north of Cayucos.
While Studios on the Park is a welcome respite for art-lovers amid downtown’s bustling tasting rooms, shops and eateries, it’s also a fun spot for your littlest downtown-goers.
Shrouded in the hush-hush tendencies of 1920s-style unlicensed saloons, those in the know can gain entrance to 1122 Cocktail Lounge & Speakeasy through a back-alley door behind Pappy McGregor’s pub on Railroad Street in Downtown Paso Robles. Is it worth the wait? I’d say.
Open year-round, Jack Creek is working farm. Run by the Barlogio family, these sweet folks have put decades of work into their land. Where else can you find a family-owned establishment where the fam treks out to the fields to handpick the best three tomatoes for an elderly neighbor who just called in a pickup? Adorable! Jack Creek Farms features true, homegrown service.
On my first visit to the Morro Bay Skateboard Museum, I went in knowing basically nothing about the sport. Afterward, I left enchanted with wooden boards, skating legends, and a newfound longing to run home and google all the lingo.
Plus, the kids and I got to pose on top of the world’s second-largest skateboard!
As a SLO CAL Storyteller, the region’s tourism district will be arranging monthly adventures for us to try out along California’s awesome Central Coast. This ranges in anything from water excursions and horseback riding to nature tours in the backcountry expanses of our region. Then we will take pics and video along the way, write about it, and post it on our blog & theirs.