We left the Grand Canyon Monday morning and drove to Barstow California, which seems to be a common resting point for people traveling to and from California. We stayed in the parking lot of a restaurant called Peggy Sue's 50's Diner. We found out about the free parking there through a program called Harvest Hosts, in which people who own vineyards or other businesses will let you stay there for free as long as you patronize their business. Peggy Sues Diner is on the famous Route 66, and everything in their restaurant is about route 66 and the 50's. They also have a really cute little shop that sells all kinds of movie memorabilia, everything from John Wayne to Spiderman and Hello Kitty. It was pretty random but very cute. They also have an ice cream parlor, and Kyle and i just could not resist getting ice cream especially because the sweet little old lady serving ice cream reminded us both of the Grandma from the movie 'Batteries not included' which somehow made the ice cream that much better. Outside the diner they had a "Diner-saur" park, which only had about 2 dinosaur statues, some hybrid ducks, and turtles that you couldn't pet. It definitely wasn't the fanciest of places I've ever been, but it was just for one night and it was free, so no complaints here..
After Barstow, we headed to the coast. We drove through some drastically changing, but beautiful country on our way to the coast. Which also happens to be farm country, and one of the things that I have been super excited for are farmers markets and fresh fruit stands. After driving by the 25th orange orchard we decided to swing into one and grab some fresh oranges. Then we also made sure to latch onto some of the delicious fresh strawberries too!
We got just a small taste of Highway 1 on our way to Santa Barbara. We are staying about 15 miles north east of Santa Barbara in the Los Padres National Forest, on Paradise Rd. I find the road name fitting because this place is a lot like paradise to me. Our campground is very quite, with lots of little beasties to torment the pups, especially Frank. There is also a group of Turkeys that hangs out too.
After getting camp set up we set off to do a little bit of exploring, and per recommendation of my good friend Wendi Olson, we ended up in Solvang. Solvang is a REALLY cute little Danish Village, that would be a wine drinkers dream. There is seriously a wine tasting place every other store front. The other store fronts consist of bakeries and souvenir shops, both of which can be trouble for me... We managed to have some self control tho, and only stopped at one bakery. I had no intention of getting anything in this bakery, but there was a very nice gentleman who suggested that we get the Jalapeño Cheese Pull apart bread and the spreadable cheddar cheese. After evaluating the situation, we realized that a man, who was enjoying a very large piece of chocolate cake, in a bakery at 3pm on a Tuesday, probably knows what he's talking about and you should buy the bread and cheese. Well needless to say, he was not wrong, its amazing, and also an ultimate test of our self control. We also decided that we wanted to try some local wines, and asked a lovely lady in the next store what her best local wines are. She pointed us in the direction of the Sunstone Merlot, and a Firestone CabSav. Which apparently the Firestone Vineyard was one of the first in the Santa Ynez Valley. Both wines are quite delicious.
There are a lot of opportunities for hiking around where we are staying, so yesterday we got up early and took the pups for a 3 mi loop hike about 3 miles away from our campground. Its is the Aliso Loop trail. It was a stunning hike, that whooped the dogs butts! It is a very rare occurrence that we out hike the puppies, especially Frank, but they were dragging ass on our way down the trail. The way up to the top of the trail, gave many spectacular views of the mountains around you, on a very well worn trail. Very easy hiking. They way down was a little less friendly. The trail was overgrown in many places and really didn't seem like it go much use. This is where the fear of snakes started to sneak back in.. The ranger had told us that the rattlers were out but the numbers were down because of the drought, but it still freaks both of us out to think that we might run into one on the trail.. Well we didn't see any snakes, but we did see Bees... Lots of Bees. That apparently nest in the ground, or the trail in this instance. We didn't realize what it was at first and stopped literally in the middle of the nest to take a closer look, then realizing what we were looking at took off running!!! The next time we came across them, Kyle was in front of me and was trying to stop Trigger from doing whatever dumb thing she was doing at the time, and I tried to calmly say "MORE BEES KYLE!!!" Obviously it was not at all calm because he shot straight up in the air and was running before he hit the ground again.. In hind site it was hilarious!! Had he still been playing football, it was one of those moves that for sure ends in a touch down, quite impressive really. We all know Kyle has nice calf muscles but its even better to see them in action.
Next on the agenda for the day was taking the pups to the beach. It was a first for them, and proved to be something that they very much enjoyed... They frolicked in the tide, jumped over waves, took out a bull dog that was trying to play with them, you know the usual. They were so tired after leaving that Trigger couldn't find enough energy to jump into the truck, and all three of them were very ready to get into their kennels and just sleep for a while. Overall I think they really had a great time, we made it out of there with only one little scuffle with a bull dog puppy who decided to pick a fight with the biggest dog she could find on the beach. No harm done to either dog luckily. I mean really, Frank has no teeth, and the other one was a bulldog. There was only one moment of pure panic for me during this adventure. That was when I noticed that Frank started to take a dump in the ocean. I started yelling to try to make him stop and in my mad panic to try a get a poop bag out of my pocket and catch his presents before someone else noticed, I dropped my phone in the sand. No one seemed to notice what Frank had just done, and I didn't notice that my phone was missing, so I just took off running away from the scene of the crime. About 15 minutes later I had the dreaded realization that my phone was missing. We found it, very close to the scene of the dreaded poop crime scene. No worries though, I'm sure there was nothing that got on my phone because it had spent about 15 minutes with the tide washing it clean. Oh goodie! It was still working when we found it so I immediately turned it off and wrapped it in a towel to try to start drying it out a little, then took it to the restroom and dried it with the Dyson Hand Dryers that they have in there... Worked like a charm, luckily my phone still works and there seems to be little to no damage to it.
In doing research about taking dogs to the beach, one of the biggest things that people said to look out for was to not let the dogs drink too much of the salt water. Frank was hilarious, he kept trying to drink the water, but we thought he was just spitting it out because the look on his face when he took a drink was one of complete disgust. Apparently we were very wrong, the poor guy ended up getting pretty sick an hour after leaving the beach.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking on the beach in Santa Barbara walking around the beach, and Sterns Wharf. Then we went to the historic Santa Fe Courthouse. This was amazing. This is one of the original building in Santa Barbara that still shows a lot of the Spanish architectural influence in Santa Barbara. The building still has all of the original tile work through out. Definitely a must see for anyone going to Santa Barbara. You can also climb to the top of the lookout tower and see beautiful views of the coast and the city.
We decided to take the advice of our fellow RVer friends from California, and have dinner while we were in Santa Fe. They had recommend Los Agaves for some excellent Mexican food. Their advice was very much appreciated, as this was one of the best burritos I've ever had. Thank you Kym and Kevin!!!
We are headed to Ventura today to check out some more dog friendly beaches, the Pier and a local farmers market. Stay tuned for more excellent adventures!
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