Weekend Escape: Half Moon Bay : Coastal Cozy : Even the Chill of This Seaside Town Near Santa Cruz Can’t Dampen This Couple’s Kid-Free Holiday

By 8 o’clock, a chill fog thick enough to scoop out of the night air had enveloped the highway, our car and a good part of our visibility.

For the past 45 minutes, my husband and I had been following the center white marker along this stretch of California 1--the Cabrillo Highway--as if it were a lifeline, vaguely aware that the ocean lay somewhere to our left. Once past Davenport, a whistle-stop a few miles north of Santa Cruz, the only other signs of life were the occasional blurs of passing headlights and the lone searching blink from the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

Our trip had started early on this Friday morning. With mountain bikes strapped on top of our compact station wagon, we’d spent most of the leisurely drive along Highway 101 in rich sunlight, scooting past fields of vegetables, vineyards and dun-colored rolling hills. Destination: a bed and breakfast in Half Moon Bay, a coastal town about 20 miles south of San Francisco, renowned for its fall pumpkin festival in which the population balloons from 9,000 to 300,000 over a two-day weekend. (This year the festival is this weekend, Oct. 16-17.)

To me, this stretch of coast between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, with its wild vistas and biting air, is the most beautiful in the state. In the early ‘70s, I’d spent a week in Half Moon Bay with my family in a rented seaside cottage. I remembered the briny smells and commercial fishing boats from nearby Pillar Point Harbor, the vegetable farms and flower growers, and a town so wholesome it was almost corny.

My husband and I had planned a few days away from our 4- and 8-year-olds, with lots of time to chat-- uninterrupted-- and with visions of candlelight dinners. But I’d forgotten about the fog.

We sat in silence as we watched our romantic rendezvous turn into a dank expedition. We couldn’t see the moon, much less the bay. Where the heck was civilization, and when we reached it, would we even be able to see it through all this gray?

Then our headlights caught the green highway sign: Half Moon Bay.

We turned toward the Old Town district, down Main Street and past Cunha’s General Store, an institution here since the mid-1920s, where Levi’s are sold amid the souvenir T-shirts. The dismal gray turned into a soft haze; a couple strolled by hugging each other against the chill.

We saw a white picket fence, lights glowing from behind lace curtains, and flowers everywhere--clustered in beds along the side of the blue clapboard house or spilling out of containers around the entryway. The sign said Zaballa House--the oldest house in Half Moon Bay, circa 1859.

The door opened before we could turn the handle.

“Pat!” said a cheery, lean middle-aged man with a big grin and a British accent, holding a glass of wine. We felt like neighbors dropping in for hot toddies. The living-room fireplace was warm as toast and just as comforting.

“Simon Lowings, proprietor,” he said, helping us pull our bags inside, then offering us each a glass of wine.

Simon, we later learned, had been in charge of restoring this house four years ago. He and his wife had turned the dilapidated building, then being used as offices, into a nine-room guest house decorated in pastel shades of floral wallpaper, with bouquets of dried and fresh flowers everywhere. Some of the rooms have fireplaces and whirlpools.

Our room on the first floor--$105 a night--was decorated in peach tones with cabbage-rose wallpaper. It had a big claw-foot tub, scented soaps, thick cotton towels and a brass bed. Our window opened out onto a flower garden. Like the other rooms in the house, it was romantic without being fussy, elegant yet comfortable.

But wallpaper gazing could wait; we were hungry and eager to sample some of the local seafood. Lowings ticked off several recommendations, noting that the Moss Beach Distillery was a lively place. So we finished our wine, changed clothes and headed back into the fog for the 10-minute drive up the highway.

This seafood house and oyster bar, even in the misty gray, would win hands down in a local color contest. Situated at the end of a bumpy, blacktop road that wound back toward sandy cliffs, the restaurant and bar were packed with people. Mingling with the wine-sipping crowd in their 20s and 30s were guys in Levi’s hugging beers and watching the Giants on TV. On the open deck on the building’s second story, a few hardy romantics huddled on chaise lounges under layers of stadium blankets that are kept stacked in a corner for just such occasions. They were engaging in that romantic pastime I suspect is popular up here: fog gazing.

According to historical accounts, this place thrived during Prohibition, when bootleggers used it as a drop-off point for supplying booze to San Francisco nightspots. Today it gets a lot of mileage out of its four resident ghosts--seances are held here regularly, for a fee.

We ate slow and left late. The joint was still jumpin’ as we headed back to Zaballa House.

The next morning we were awakened by the sounds and smells of breakfast being served in the dining room--grinding coffee beans, the aroma of homemade nut breads, honey-glazed granola and a Mexican-style egg fritata. Over our third helping of nut bread, we debated how to spend the day. Choices ranged from picking berries at a nearby “U-Pick” farm, visiting the local Obester Winery, horseback riding along the beach, watching the working fishing boats at the harbor, or window shopping on Main Street.

We opted for burning off some calories and taking advantage of the autumn warmth; this area’s Indian summer months, with their crisp evenings and brilliant sun-filled days when temperatures rest in the 70s, are as predictable as the fog. So we decided to take the mountain bikes for a spin along the back roads. (We brought our own mountain bikes, but you can rent touring or mountain bikes at Half Moon Bay Bicyclery on Main Street for $12 for 2 hours, or $24 a day.)

We headed down Main Street, turned left onto Higgins/Purisima Road past the white, saltbox-style James Johnston House (circa 1855) and onto a rural blacktop road where we were greeted by the sign, “Horse Country, Drive Slow.”

Indeed, as we cranked along, we saw plenty of horse farms; at one point we slowed while a fellow traveler cantered by on a rangy chestnut. We played tag with the fog and watched it burn off to reveal a crisp blue autumn sky.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the shops on Main--the inevitable gift boutiques, galleries with watercolors from local artists. But unlike some coastal towns that get caught up in a tourist boom and yield to pressures for fast-food franchises, Half Moon Bay seems to have done a careful job of blending old with new, retaining the area’s agricultural roots while tending its history. The espresso cafe, pasta shop and sushi bar sit next to the feed and grain--one of four we counted on Main Street alone. The Half Moon Bay bakery has has been churning out oven-baked French bread since 1927. Up the street, Cunha’s Country Grocery is owned and operated by the founder’s daughter and her family. You can step off Main along the parallel back streets and find a community in which residents tend topiaries and rose gardens.

One of the nicest bits of restoration is the San Benito House on Main, refurbished in 1979 as a country inn and home to what is arguably one of the best restaurants on the Central Coast. Reservations were strongly recommended, so we booked in for an 8:30 dinner, the earliest available.

The kitchen specializes in Mediterranean cuisine and serves simple food with complex flavors. I found the apricot chutney and medallions of pork to be just the right combination of flavors. My usually chatty husband was notably silent after his scallop and shrimp entree was served. In addition to French wines, the menu features selections from a lot of the good but sometimes hard-to-find boutique wineries in Northern California.

We finished the meal off with the perfect autumn dessert: a poached pear served with a dollop of mascarpone cheese and walnuts. Between bites we plotted the next day’s adventures: a drive down the coast to Pescadero, an old Portuguese town where the general store makes great homemade bread. Or maybe we would just get lost on some coastal back road.

As we headed out into the lowering mist for the short walk up the street to our cozy room, full of good food and warm with wine, we huddled together. Pleasantly lost in a fog.

Budget for Two Gas from Capistrano Beach: $53 Two nights at Zaballa House: $231 Lunch, City Market, Santa Barbara: $13 Dinner at Moss Beach Distillery: $91 Snack lunch: $12 Dinner, San Benito House: $69 Market-fixings lunch: $5 Fast-food burger dinner: $7.50 FINAL TAB: $481.50

Zaballa House, 324 Main St., Half Moon Bay 94019; telephone (415) 726-9123. San Benito House, 356 Main St., Half Moon Bay 94019; tel. (for inn and restaurant reservations) (415) 726-3425. Moss Beach Distillery, Beach and Ocean Avenues, Moss Beach; tel. (415) 728-5595. Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce, tel. (415) 726-5202.