Morro Bay, CA

Morro Bay Harbor is guarded by a 576 foot tall rock some have called the "Gibraltar of the Pacific" but locally it is now known as Morro Rock.  It can be seen from miles away especially coming south on Highway One-a solitary sentry of the coastline surrounded by a relatively flat coastal dune line compared to those in Oceano.  An inlet opens to a small bay filled with fishing boats and sailboats.  The town of Morro Bay fronts the east side of the bay and is mostly a tourist and beach destination with quaint shops and several restaurants along its waterfront as well as kayak rental enterprises.  You can get wonderful saltwater taffy or fish and chips just north of town along the docks.  

Morro Rock itself was once in the core of a volcano that had begun erupting 26 million years ago along the California coast with eight other volcanos all somewhat evenly distributed southwardly to Islay Hill.  This gigantic mound of stone ultimately would become a plug in the volcano made of dacite which is similar to granite.  Years of erosion by the sea would eventually wear away the slopes of the volcano to reveal Morro Rock.  It's location at the edge of the sea would create its initial function as a marker for the indigenous people who settled the area because of the mild climate and abundant food sources found here.  Later sailing vessels and European missionaries used the rock as a sea faring marker or landmark due to its spectacular visibility from miles away.  At one point from 1890 to 1963 more than a million tons of the rock were quarried for use as local building material.  In 1968 the rock became a State Historic Landmark.  Now home to a bountiful seabird population including the rare peregrine falcon, the rock is protected from climbers and miners.

We watched children playing on the beach and waves breaking over a jetty at the inlet to the bay.  A flutist serenaded us with a delightful melody and we watched a father try unsuccessfully to fly a kite for his young son.  There is a now closed electric plant which the locals call their "landmark" that stopped producing electricity this past February.  It looms over downtown with three tall smoke stacks.  The town is hosting its annual "Classic Car Show" this weekend.  More on that later.  We are comfortable in this little town and being a tourist here is relaxing.  Even the seals find it relaxing as a half a dozen of them float on their backs amid the kelp in the bay enjoying the calm water.

Good Bye Dunes

We went to play in the dunes again this morning before we left Oceano.  The dunes have been a continual draw while we have stayed at Pacific Dunes RV Park.  Last night we walked after dinner and captured a beautiful sunset with one of our cell phone cameras (how did we get along without them?)

Then this morning we climbed over the dunes further to reach a view of the sea.  It was well worth the effort because the view is extraordinary and we learned we really could play on the dunes without getting buried.  Both of us became bolder as we walked down one ridge after another.  Walking down the edge of a dune becomes a fun sliding experience and the reward for struggling up the banks of sand in the first place.  It was not as windy on this trip, so we did not feel as though we were eating sand either.   Reaching the view of the sea felt like being an early day explorer of this place and the sense of accomplishment was grand.  I can imagine how those early explorers felt the same surge of exhilaration.

As we headed back I discovered a tiny lady bug in the middle of one of the sandy flat spots we were traversing.  I could not imagine her making it back to plants in the heat nor over the distance and attempted to carry her home to the RV park with us.  Alas, I was not successful.  When I opened my cupped hands to let her fly she was already gone.  I've heard if a lady bug comes into your life (or home) she brings you luck.  I only hope I gave it back to her as well.

San Louis Obispo, CA

We drove up to Santa Margarita Lake today to see a park and passed through San Louis Obispo where they were holding a marathon.  We passed the finish line well into the race probably seeing the folks toward the back of the pack reaching it.  The marathon ended at the Madonna Inn (a famously eccentric inn established here in 1958.)  Seeing the last of the runners slowly achieve the finish brings back memories of when I ran the Boston Marathon years ago.  For those of us finishing with the later group of runners, “just finishing” was the goal but we were proud nevertheless.

The large university “California Polytechnic at San Louis Obispo” is located here.  Also known by its initials of SLO, the city is also another downtown that has incorporated “the mall” into its central core of streets keeping the city vibrant.  As one of the oldest communities in California, there are architecturally interesting, original buildings mixed in with newer structures giving the town character.  We passed one building called the Ah Louis Store, which is the last vestige of what was once a Chinatown in the city.  There is an alley here called “Bubblegum Alley” where people have been sticking their chewed gum since 1960!  (I did not walk down the alley nor photograph it-maybe next trip!)  The Fremont Theater is a prominent structure here and still operates as a movie theater showing first runs on its huge screen within its art deco styled venue dating from the 1940’s.  The city is known for its bike friendly environment even including traffic lights designed for their passage through town-one of very few cities in the country to do so.

While up in Santa Margarita we had lunch at a place called The Porch Café displaying a fabulous example of a Long Horn cow’s skull on one of its walls.  They make a delicious burger and fries well worth the wait.  This town has a very Western feel with one small main street that includes a variety of “antique” stores and our lunch spot.  Just outside of town the countryside is made up of large ranches that sport either cattle, horses or vineyards.  The required dress code seems to be jeans and cowboy boots for nine out of ten people standing in line at the café.  We had the jeans but my cowboy boots are in Florida.   

Rosa's Ristorante Italiano

Awesome food, great atmosphere, impeccable service.  Yes, we found our Italian Restaurant for this area.  Recommended by a park manager, we decided to try Rosa's Ristorante Italiano on a rainy Friday night here.  What could be better than comforting pasta on Jim's night to cook?  He's happy.  I'm happy.  Put this on your bucket list of restaurants for the next time you come to Pismo Beach.

Jim tried the lasagna and I took the butternut squash ravioli.  We splurged on calories and shared an appetizer of a mozzarella cheese ball with a marzipan center served atop a crusty slice of French bread surrounded by diced tomato and roasted pepper slices in a balsamic vinegar reduction.  Yummy.  Here's their website:  www.rosasrestaurant.com 

(and yes I am smiling too.  I just have a mouth full of ravioli!)

Pismo Beach, CA

Views of the dramatic coastline and cliffs of Pismo Beach, CA are accessible by driving along U.S. Highway One and then dropping down through little neighborhood streets to the road that fronts the cliffs.  Surprisingly, there is parking to be found here along with benches to sit on or parks to stroll through.  Here you can pull over to view the waterfront for miles in front of homes that one could easily lust after.  (Winning the lottery would be a nice option in order to acquire one of these homes.  I'd choose the one on a point with what resembles a light house adjacent to it.)

The coastline here runs to the dunes in the south that we were playing on two days ago.  Today the wind is blowing the sand of the dunes up into a fog-like cloud above the dunes that we can see from miles away.  The cold front brings these winds and rain with it too for which the locals are grateful.  Getting the coach rinsed off is nice for us as well.  Puff was starting to look like we should rename her Pig Pen from the Snoopy cartoon series but our kitty vetoed that idea!  There is a new bloom this week to be seen on trees that is a remarkable red color.  In spite of researching for it, I am unable to identify what this tree is called.

The wind has been utilized in California in a number of ways both in the past and present but the windmill we saw today at the edge of the sea seemed like it was brought over from Holland (maybe a decorative rather than utilitarian function for one of these luxury waterfront homes?)  We have no idea of its age or function, but it was photogenic.

The coastline here is interesting with rocky, flat looking ridges visible at low tide that emanate from the bottoms of the cliffs to swirl out into the sea creating tidal pools that shelter star fish.  Caves have been gouged out of the cliffs by the tides and huge outcroppings of rock rise out of the sea just off shore creating islands solely for the seabirds.  What caused these ridges?  I wish I was a geologist!

And so I have left us with mysteries today.  Maybe we will learn the answers together.  We'll throw these questions out into the world and see what comes back.  In the meantime, I'll keep researching.

Playing in the Dunes

I felt like a kid today when Jim and I walked the dunes to the west of our RV park.  I wanted to run among them and slide down their slopes.  I didn't but I did feel them with bare feet as the sand slipped between my toes after I pulled off my sandals briefly.  They are firmer than I imagined for the most part except for the edges that tumble down around your legs if you get too close to the bottom of a ridge.  Fearing we'd be buried if we ventured too close to the top edge of a ridge, we avoided testing the results of that endeavor.

They told us it was half a mile across the dunes to the ocean.  We could only see the water in the distance after walking out over what seemed like more than a half mile.  So we turned around to return to the coach only to see that our footsteps were almost gone behind us.  The wind was erasing the marks of our passage almost as fast as we had produced them.  Swirls of sand stung at the corners of our eyes and the surface of the sand sparkled with a million tiny glints in the late afternoon sun.  Little ridges formed across each rise and fall of the dunes and only a few plants cling to life among them.  They seem almost alive as the wind constantly reshapes them.  This is my first experience of walking upon dunes.  It proved to be great exercise and playing together in the moment at this place in our own private space is one of the reasons traveling like this is so rewarding.

Oceano and Pismo Beach

Yesterday we changed "camping" locations and moved north yet again to Oceano, CA where we will stay a week.  The park is situated at the edge of dunes and a wide sandy beach where you are permitted to drive a car similar to Daytona Beach, FL or Port Aransas, TX.  The town is your typical beachside village with the usual array of tee shirt shops.  What is unique here is the ability to walk right out onto the dunes or to rent horses from their stables and go horseback riding along the beach.

It was windy when we arrived here with swirls of dust blowing across the spaces in the park.  We are not going to be enticed to open the windows to hear the ocean.  It is colder here overnight and we continue to use the heater.  Today will be a work day.  Luckily the Internet is good here even if we do have to pay per computer to use it.  It is not usual that we have to pay though, so we can't really complain.

Driving here yesterday we passed a substantial number of vineyards in the valley that fronts the road with the continuing backdrop of softly rolling granite hills covered with the same yellow swatches of color swirled within the varying shades of green.  We were able to identify one type of grape they are growing here by a small white sign identifying the vines as Pinot Grigio.  The production of raspberries, lettuce, cabbage and strawberries was also evident (at least those were the ones I could identify.)  I suspect there are other produce items grown here.  Just east of the park are large farms of just planted fields.

We saw the staff feeding the horses at dusk.  Ground squirrels actually sat on the rails of the corral watching us (look carefully and you may see one on the fence and another in the lower right corner of the photo) and the horses.  It seems they have a large population of these and we noted a hawk making good use of their abundance.  And so we have gone from a town park to a rural park.  The variety is lovely and the view is never boring.

Coloring Easter Eggs Hint

There is a trick to coloring eggs for Easter I heard about at Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton.  One of the staff discovered it on Martha Stewart’s website where you can find instructions on how to do it.  Apparently there are two ways to create these unusual egg patterns.  One is a method to “marbleize” the effect of the dye on the eggs.  Here’s the link to Martha Stewart’s site to get the instructions if you’d like to save it for next year’s eggs as well:

http://www.marthastewart.com/264622/marbleized-easter-eggs

There is also a method to do these using silk (think of men's ties or scarves.)  The ones above were done using this method.  I did not believe it was possible until I looked it up and sure enough it was under Martha Stewart as well:

http://www.marthastewart.com/269788/silk-tie-easter-eggs

What a fun craft project for any age!  I thought they were really beautiful and wanted to show them to you.  I would like to try this next Easter!  

Ostrich Land

Between Buellton and Slovang an ostrich farm called "Ostrich Land" fronts the highway not unlike one in Arizona just south of Casa Grande.  Both have the options of perusing a gift shop.  You can "Feed this Bad Boy" according to the farm's sign here in Buellton.  I also saw where they have baby ostriches to view.  We decided it was too late in the day to take advantage of this attraction, but we did have the opportunity to photograph some of them in their pasture.  They seemed very active and quite large-it was entertaining just seeing them from the road!

 

Denmark in California

The town is called Slovang.  Just four miles down the road from our RV park in Buellton, is a town that is entirely devoted to all things Danish.  The town is dedicated to Hans Christian Andersen, the famous author of children's books.  There is a true bell tower with a large town clock along with a non-leaning Tower of Pizza.

Packed with tourists for the Easter weekend, it was busy everywhere we walked giving the whole experience a festive atmosphere.  Gorgeous Clydesdale horses pull a wagon through town for a narrated tour and the four wheel pedal carts where everywhere along the streets.  I can't say who was having more fun, the parents or the children in these self-propelled vehicles!

From Danish pastries to fudge, ice cream or beer garden restaurants, any pallet could be satisfied beyond any measure.  Surely I could have defeated my FitBit in calorie measurement too in spite of the stroll we took while there.

There were windmills and architecture that reminded me of what I imagine Denmark to be, but alas I have never visited the country so I can't verify if any of this is authentic or merely an Americanized tourist version.  I can tell you the shops were wonderful to explore from refrigerator magnets to exotic cuckoo clocks.

It was very much like Leavenworth in Washington State and I would stroll its streets again given the opportunity.