A Week of Projects

So we have been here for a week and have only left the campground for one day. Each morning we would get up, have our cup of coffee and decide to start a small project and then drive into Solvang or Santa Ynez or Solvang. Wrong !!

First of all, we have discovered a new coffee brand. We have been Starbucks coffee drinkers for several years and have purchased it at Costco or SamsClub. As like everything else, the prices have been going up !!! The 3 lb bag became a 39 oz bag and the price has gone from &14.99 to $21.99. So for the past year we have started trying different brands. We tried Seattle Coffee and went back to Starbucks. Then we tried Kirkland's (Costco's brand) which was supposedly made by Starbucks and could not even finish the package. And so back to Starbucks again. Two weeks ago, when we saw Starbucks was at $21.99, we decided to try San Francisco Coffee. And we like it. It has a different aroma and flavor than Starbucks but it is really quite good. Now our only problem is whether or not we need to be in the San Francisco or even California to buy it. Time will tell.

Now back to our week. We had two blinds that had broken cords that need restringing. I have put off doing that for about 6 months. A couple of days ago, I decided it was time. So Barb worked outside cleaning the MH with Bailey, and I spread the blind out on the floor. I must mention that the most difficult part of this was getting the blind down. It is bolted into the cornice and the screws and nails that hold the cornice up are difficult to find. Plus the cornice is wedged into the bottom of the cabinets............well, we finally got it down and I started restringing. That requires 4 strings in criss cross pattern following a diagram from the blinds people. Well, this anticipated one hour project took the entire day. And Barb wiped down the entire motorhome. NO OUTING ON THIS DAY !

Each day has been like that with a different project that was to be just in the morning but took the entire day. Our only outing was to Santa Ynez to get our mail.

Since Solvang is only 3 miles from Santa Ynez, we decided to drive there to have their famous
Danish pancakes. And to purchase the Danish sausages. Each order has two pancakes that are larger than the size of the plate. More than we can eat for lunch so we take half home and have the pancakes and sausage for dinner. What a feast.

After lunch we stopped at the casino, registered for one of their member cards and got $50 in free play. After about an hour we walked away with $40. So with money in our pockets we went to the Gainey winery and had a wine tasting. By then it was after 5:00 pm so we headed home.

So this week we had a great outing for one day and accomplished all of the items on our list the other 6 days.

Today we go grocery shopping !!!

Love and hugs,
Barb and Linda

Rancho Oso

We left Pismo Beach on Sunday and are now all set up at Rancho Oso, which is about 1/2 way between Santa Barbara on the south and Solvang on the north. We were at this park as we traveled north. We were quite pleased to be able to get the same campsite back that looks to the hills out our front window. The park is on levels and we are on the top, furthest from the pool, the store, and the lodges, and further away from all of the activities in the park when it is crowded.

We will be here for two weeks (until Sept 2)and have no definite plans for activities. I am sure we will drive into Santa Barbara to get more of our ocean fix as well as to get fresh farmer's market fruits and vegetables. And I am also sure we will drive towards Solvang and Los Olivos to visit the many wineries in the area.

So love and hugs to all of you,
Barb and Linda

Pictures from Pismo Beach Area

Barb just loves to stand and watch the waves.
And I love to watch the pelicans and try to get photos of them in flight.













If you double click on this photo and look closely at the rock in the center, you will see that the top is inhabited by pelicans.
A perfect landing !

Love and hugs,

Linda and Barb

We Are Back in Pismo Beach

We left Morgan Hill yesterday, August 10. Our time there was pretty much uneventful in terms of activities. Seems like we always have lists of stuff to do and we spent most of the time trying to shorten the list. Good progress!!!

Our location in Pismo Beach is about one block from the ocean. We will be staying a week here and plan to just walk in the sand and the boardwalk and watch the waves and birds.


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Our campground is right where Le Sage is indicated. So each morning when I walk Bailey we get to go to the beach to watch the waves.

Love to all of you,
Linda and Barb

Morgan Hill

We are now in the Morgan Hill Thousand Trails park.


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We left San Benito on July 18 and drove 44 miles to get here. Our main reason for being here is that it is close to San Jose and Barb was able to fly to St. Louis to see her mom. She left on Tuesday, 21st, and will return tomorrow.


But our good fortune is that Clare and Jay live in San Francisco and we had hopes of visiting them. Doug and Michel were also in San Francisco to visit Clare and Jay. Jay proposed the idea of us all meeting for dinner on the evening that we arrived. Since it took us until almost five o'clock to set up, they volunteered to drive to Morgan Hill. We had a wonderful dinner at a small Italian restuarant here. I would rate the food a 5 and the ambience a 3. In other words, the food was great, but the restuarant was very noisy from other table conversations. We managed to talk and catch up on everything and so it was a great evening.

We will be here until next Sunday and then we head back to San Benito again.

Love and hugs,
Linda and Barb

This Isn't Just Any Old Kitty Cat

Our last day at San Benito, I was in the car and Barb was just stepping out of the motorhome, and this very "friendly" pussycat just strolled from behind our rig to the tree on our site. He spied a hole that a squirrel had been digging for the past couple of days and my guess is that the squirrel was in it at this time.

He spent about 15 minutes just looking in this hole waiting for the squirrel and then finally just wandered off. He was no more than 10 feet from us, but his interest was not in us. So I just kept taking pictures.

You can enlarge the pictures by double clicking on them.

This was definitely a WOW experience !!!

Monterey: Fisherman's Wharf

Washing and Waxing the Rig

Our big project while in San Benito was to get the rig washed and waxed. When it was new , we paid close to $150 to have someone do it. Then we decided that we could wash and wax it ourselves and it would be a much better job.



We have washed it many times but have not waxed it for almost two years.
We spread the job out over 4 days, just doing a section each morning until about noon when it started to get hot.


Well, that job is done for now.

Some of The Visitors to our Campsite

Each day when we sit out and have our coffee, we get visits from different wildlife.

We thought you might enjoy some of the pictures.

Monterey: 17 Mile Drive

As you can see, it was a very foggy day.

Paicines, CA

We are at the Thousand Trails San Benito park. The park is outside of Paicines, CA, which is about 50 miles from San Jose. So we re really out in the middle of nowhere.We are surrounded by farm land......planted areas are growing vegetables but the there are some unplanted dirt areas. Some of the plantings are the grapevines for the wineries. Other than that there is not much here.

In the Google Earth map below, you will see a cluster of rv's where our park is located. You can enlarge the size of the map as well as click on the + sign to get in closer to see the rv park. We are in the section to the left since that is the only section where we can get cell phone and internet service. We found a spot that is under these huge trees that provide shade for us all day and we can look out at the hills and vegetation in the area. It is really a very nice park and we like it.


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We will be here for three weeks, until July 20. We spent the 4th of July weekend here; no fireworks due to the propensity of fires in the area. We did watch the Boston Pops on TV and so got our fireworks fix that way.


Love and hugs,
Linda and Barb

Pismo Beach

We left Rancho Oso and headed to the beach. So many people had told us that the Pismo Beach area was absolutely beautiful. It was only an 80 mile drive so we were there well before noon. Our plan was just to spend 2 nights there so that we would basically have a day and a half to see the beach. We found a campground that was a very short walk from the beach.

After we set up at the rv site , we took a walk to the beach with Bailey. This was his first experience with the ocean and it was so much fun to watch him. He would go out to the water and then when the waves came in , he would fun so fast. He could not figure out what was going on. Eventually, he decided that he did not like the water and just stayed away from it.

We descovered that this beach was a State Recreational Vehicle Beach. Cars and RV's are allowed to drive onto the beach. So, we went back to the campground and drove onto the beach. What fun!!! We checked out the area where the RV's were parked and decided that we will camp on a solid surface. RV's that park on the sand have to lower the air pressure in their tires to 20 psi. At this pressure there is less likelyhood that they will sink into the sand. There are all kinds of services available on the beach to help the rv'ers...........air stations to refill the tires when they leave, tow service to pull them out of the sand if they sink, wood sales for fires in the sand.

But we did go back and get the car and our chairs and spent that afternoon and the next day on the beach. That evening as we were eating dinner we noticed that the sunset was right over the ocean. So we immediately walked to the beach and watch a glorious sunset over the water.

What a wonderfully beautiful area this is!

We had a great time there and plan to stop again on our way back.

More Pictures

Several of you have asked me to include more of my photography. I have selected some of the scenic shots that represent where we have been.

Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens:









We took a ride in the Oso National Forest which is above our campground. There are 6 places where the road goes into the river. We were a little nervous but it really was okay.

This restuarant used to be stopping point for the stage coaches.

Now it is a favorite place for motorcyclists.

They tell us that on Sunday the place is hopping crazy.

So we went on Thursday.

Thanks to all of you for your positive comments and encouragement.


Love and hugs,

Linda and Barb

Our Three Weeks at Rancho Oso

We have spent the past three weeks camped at Rancho Oso Thousand Trails and have totally enjoyed this location. As you can see, we are in the hills and totally surrounded by the Santa Ynez National Forest. If you double click on the picture and enlarge it, you should see us, the brown motorhome, on the back row.

We are about 20 miles from the Santa Barbara beaches and wharfs in one direction and about 20 miles from the wineries of Solvang and Los Olivos. For us, that is best of both worlds.

The weather here has been almost perfect. The nights are cool and the days are warm. I guess I could complain since the nights are almost tooooo cool in the 50's and the days are almost tooooooo warm in the 90's. But that has worked out well for us. Each day we would sit outside drinking coffee while the weather is cool. We would take our walks and relax. And then by around noon we would prepare to go for an outing. And then return by around five'ish when it cools down and we can enjoy our glass of wine outside. And Bailey is loving this schedule, too.

We also took a drive on a windy road into the mountains to view the Chumash Indians wall paintings.

This was a magnificient example of Indian drawings; all of the work in this cave was done in color, mainly red.

We have never seen drawing so clear and well preserved as these.

Solvang is a Danish community with many restuarants serving Danish cuisine. We went to Paula's Pancake house and had these pancakes that were as large as the plate and as thin as paper. We got the ones that were sprinkled with powdered sugar but there were others with syrup, rasberries, sausage, strawberries. They were absolutely delicious. I ordered the Danish sausage on the side. It had a sweet taste. We enjoyed it so much that we purchased some to take home with us.

There are so many wineries in this area that there is no way for us to go to them all. We did discover that some of the wineries were just tasting rooms in Solvang, Los Olivos or Santa Ynez. Each of these are small towns within 10 miles of each other.

We chose not to go to the tasting rooms but to go to the wineries themselves. The entrances and the grounds were beautifully landscaped and were surrounded but what seemed like miles of vineyards. We went to the Firestone winery and the Bridlewood winery. And of course we purchased several bottles of wine from each. What fun that was. By the way, if you get a chance to sample Firestone wine, you may want to try it. We love both the white and the red wines from this winery.

As you can see, I have not mentioned the beaches of Santa Barbara. We went to the beaches several times, took walks along the beaches as well as brought our blanket and spent an afternoon reading and watching the waves. We also went to the wharf and harbor to have a drink and appetizers. And each time we went I did not bring my camera. So no pictures of the water. All that will have to wait until we return.

Tomorrow we leave and head north to Pismo Beach. We will spend two days there at a rv park right on the beach. Really looking forward to that.

Love and hugs. Stay healthy,

Linda and Barb