Downtown Bakersfield

When I told friends that Larry and I were driving up to Bakersfield on Friday for vacation, they looked at me like I was nuts.  Hey!  Bakersfield is cool!  The downtown area is filled with fantastic old buildings, antique shops, music stores, interesting restaurants and The Padre Hotel!

The Padre was built in 1928 as The Grand Hotel.  It went through a huge renovation in 2008 and has been updated to include 112 rooms and suites, several meeting spaces, a restaurant, a bar, a cafe, a bistro, and an outdoor bar with a cabana and fire pits.  It's really lovely.  Our room was very comfy.  The shower had tiles embossed with fleur de lis AND a window into the bedroom!

The hotel is TOTALLY art-directed.  The wallpaper in the hallways sports pictures of oil wells, cattle and more things particular to historical Bakersfield.

The wallpaper is soooo Bakersfield!

We did some shopping in the afternoon, upon arrival....yarn, records, collectibles, guitars and more.  That's a whole 'nother blog post!

Walking distance from our hotel is Chef's Choice Noodle Bar.  The ladies at Classy Knits & Yarns highly recommended this for dinner.  Knitters never lie.  Our Thai dinner was delicious!

We walked back to The Padre for a nightcap and toured more of this beautiful hotel.

There's more to Bakersfield than Buck Owens' Crystal Palace....although Buck's place is very cool too!  More tomorrow.