The Ray Adventures: Simi Valley, Santa Barbara & San Lius Obispo, Ca. March 25-March 31, 2016

We are getting closer and closer to Oregon, we should arrive there about April 15th. We will be staying at the mobile home park in South Salem that we stayed in summer before last. It's a great location, fairly close to our old neighborhood and our family and friends. Gary spent a lot of time in the clubhouse last time putting jigsaw puzzles together with a couple of senior ladies that thought he was awfully "cute". (Sorry Gary)

Friday, March 25th, Around 9:30 we were prepping to leave for Santa Barbara, all set just need to pull in the slides, wouldn't you know, our dining room slide would only come in 4" then stop. Well, why not????? Gary called Fleetwood, they did some trouble shooting but they couldn't solve the problem. They gave us the name of a local mobile RV service who finally arrived about 2. After an hour they got it to go in. Further attention will be needed. We left about 3:15 for our 75 mile drive to Santa Barbara, Friday afternoon of Easter weekend. Except for a few areas we moved along pretty good. We got to the Santa Barbara Elks lodge about 5:30 a little "whipped". After getting set up we went into the lodge to pay - just in time for Friday night dinner, Gary got the BBQ ribs and I had the stuffed sole, timing is everything.

Saturday, March 26th, It's our Grandson Tim's 24th birthday, man where does time go? We drove to Santa Barbara's visitor center, got some great information from the lady. Santa Barbara, population 88,000, a Spanish settlement established in 1782. The city's architecture is Spanish, white washed buildings and tile roofs. Also home to the rich and famous. Our first stop was at Stearns Wharf, a large wooden wharf 2,300 feet long is now a mecca for tourists with shops, restaurants, parking and an aquarium. We walked to the end, snapped some pictures, I wandered over to what I thought was a beautifully carved wood pelican next to a bench with a lady sitting about 4 feet from it. Then it moved! He sat there quite a while, Gary and I both walked over to it and he didn't budge. What a beautiful bird, he was still there when we left. We left the wharf to go downtown for lunch at Santa Barbara Brewing on State Street. Again, lots of shops and restaurants. After lunch we drove to the Old Mission Santa Barbara. We didn't go into the museum, just enjoyed the beautifully restored mission and surrounding gardens. Next we stopped at Santa Barbara Courthouse, completed in 1929, a beautiful example of Spanish architecture. We noticed many, many chairs being set up in the courtyard, they hold Easter Sunrise Service every year with generally over 1,000 faithful in attendance. I keep saying beautiful but it's just a gorgeous area. Beautiful windows, staircases, balconies, a turret and a Roman style arched fountain at the entrance. We took the elevator to the top (6th floor) of the bell tower for a 360 degree view of the area. A must see!

Sunday, March 27th Happy Easter! We decided to take a 45 mile drive up to Solvang, population 5,200. It was founded in 1911 by a group of Danes. The city is home to a number of bakeries, restaurants and shops offering a taste of Denmark, all the buildings are of the Danish style, and a replica of the famous Little Mermaid fountain in Copenhagen. We stopped for coffee and shared an eclair at one of the many bakeries. Yum, lots of Danish pastries in the cases to tempt you. We decided we needed some exercise so we drove about 6 miles to Nojoqui Falls County Park to see the 164' high waterfall. It was just a 10 minute hike to the "falls", some water cascading down, in the dry months there is hardly any water. Then we drove to Mission Santa Inez, it contrasts with the rest of the town's Danish motif, was founded in 1804, the 19th of 21 missions in Southern California. After a 1812 earthquake and a Chumash Indian uprising it was restored, still an active Catholic Church, an Easter Mass was being given outside as we drove up. It had been a while since our "snack" so we stopped at Andersen's Split Pea Soup restaurant for a little soup and and salad then back home to Luci.

Monday, March 28th, We took the scenic drive up through the foothills of Santa Barbara, getting off course occasionally, we saw many beautiful homes and the gates of the mansions. When we got a view of the bay we saw a cruise ship off-loading passengers for a day in town. We stopped at Shoreline Park for a walk around, picking up a couple of geo caches, but the wind picked up so we headed home.

Tuesday, March 29th We left Santa Barbara for an easy drive North on 101 to San Luis Obispo Elks Lodge Campground arriving about 11:30. The park has 16 spaces, only 2 were occupied. Kind of "cruddy" with dirt/gravel spots but fairly level making it easy to get settled. Timing was good again, we arrived just as they were serving lunch. We both got the daily special, taco's. It's a nice lodge with a good sized headed pool. The Mission Cemetery is on 2 sides of the property making it a great place for walking and exercising Luci, while we were there we picked up 2 geo caches. Armed with our $152.00 cash rebate from Costco we went off to stock up on supplies, a visit to the AAA to replace our California map which has seen better days and Gary got a hair cut, he was starting to look like Bernie Sanders.

Wednesday, March 30th We took a short drive to Morro Bay waterfront, only about 10 miles, population 10,000. The first settlers were the Chumash Indians then the Spanish arrived in 1769 who spotted the great round rock, a 576 tall volcanic plug. A volcanic plug is created when magma hardens with a vent on an active volcano. Who Knew? The town, named after the rock, was founded in 1870, today tourism is it's largest industry followed by fishing. We window shopped the stores up and down the wharf area before having lunch at Libertine Brewery right on the water. Our waitress, Jessica, told us a lot about the town, especially the rock. She said you can visit the base of the rock, there is lots of parking and trails but climbing the rock is forbidden because it is a Peregrine Falcon Reserve. We sat on rocks watching the sea otters, they are so cute, especially the mamma on her back with baby on her tummy. The Peregrine Falcon, a crow size bird that flies over 200 mps during a dive for food. The Falcon became an endangered species with only 2 pair left in southern California. The ban of pesticides, especially DDT, and with help breeding the birds in captivity they are off the endangered list. We spotted a Peregrine Falcon in a hole in the rock sitting on the edge keeping watch. The wind came up again so we went back to SLO.

Thursday, March 31st We took another short drive south on 101 to Pismo Beach, home of several world class golf courses and a gorgeous shoreline. We took Luci with us today, we stopped at a picturesque park on the water, walked along the trails and found one geo cache.We lunched at Shell Beach Brewhouse (of course), then drove downtown Pismo Beach. The wind came up again, we didn't have jackets so we (I) whimped out and stayed in the car. Just before we left town I spotted a fruit stand. I bought the best strawberries, almost as good as the ones from my grandma's strawberry patch.

That's it for this week, enjoy the pic's

TTFN

Gary and Pam