Howdy!
Tuesday May 17th -
We made the 3 hour trek up the coast from Santa Barbara to San Simeon Beach State Park. After setting up camp we set out to check out what was around us. We were driving into the town of San Simeon and saw a herd of zebras, mingling with a herd of cattle. Yes you read that right, Zebras… We were very confused. Did we sleep too long and end up in Africa somehow? It was quite strange. We had heard about the Hearst Castle, but had no idea what it was so we drove up and checked out the deal. It was crazy busy, and looked fascinating, but we really just weren't up for the crowds that day and knew that the pups probably wanted out of their crates. So we decided that we would come back to the castle on a different day.
We drove back down the coast to Cambria, where there is a boardwalk that goes along the beach there that we decided to walk along with the pups. Of course they are on leash on this boardwalk because it is right next to a very busy section of road, and its the rules. While I find board walks cool, its not necessarily the best place to walk dogs. We have discovered on this journey, that somewhere along the way we went terribly wrong with our dogs, and they are horrible to walk on leashes. It is seriously like torture, for them and us. Hopefully by the end of this journey we will figure it out.. Until then we will keep getting our arms pulled out of socket and keep feeling like we are choking them when they constantly pull. We also created new monsters when we introduced them to the ocean. It really has been like paradise for Frank and Trigger, Buddy could care less what his surroundings are, as long as Kyle is with him. This in itself makes walking the dogs, on leash, on a boardwalk next to the ocean, that much more fun in the torture department. Especially because all along this beach in Cambria there are signs that say no dogs. When we've decided that we've had enough torture, and seeing that there are still dogs on the beach, we decide to say screw it, lets give it a try, give ourselves a break and let them play. We are always good about keeping the dogs away from where other people and other dogs, because we don't want to be ass holes basically. So we always keep them on leash until we get to a spot that is vacant and they can roam freely. As we started to descend the stairs to the beach, we got to experience something very unexpected. We got yelled at by an old man. He was actually stretching before he went surfing, and got up to come yell at us for trying to bring our dogs on the beach, although there were three other dogs already on the beach. He was very aggressive about it too, I couldn't believe what was happening. I honestly think that the whole situation went ok, because Kyle was the first one to the beach. He tends to be much more calm than I am, and much more rational. I have a tendency to see red when someone acts that way toward me, and there probably would have been a lot of yelling and what nots going on, and if he would have tried to stop me from walking onto the beach, by putting his hand across my chest, the way he did to Kyle, I don't know what I would have done. Kyle was able to calm him down and out of respect we left to find another beach. We went to the store right after that to see if anyone there had any suggestions about where to take the pups. Morro Bay and Cayucos, were suggestions that one lady made. Then a guy named Brandon, said really any beach in this area is cool with dogs, he's never heard of a guy reacting like that and thought it was as ridiculous as we did. We ended up going to the beach just across the highway from our campground. It is a really nice beach, the sand is black, and some of the beach isn't sand at all, it is tiny little pebbles. I find this type of cool because doesn't get stuck to everything. The water is much rougher here than it was down by Santa Barbara. Coast is also rockier, and seems much more tumultuous. Water is more clear up here and in different lights seems to change colors from a sea green to almost teal blue, very cool to see. Frank is still trying his best at swimming in the water. I swear he races the waves, its quite hilarious. The racing was fine with the itty bitty waves we saw further south, but here they're faster and bigger, he doesn’t stand much of a chance if he gets out too far. He got rolled pretty good by one of them, and hasn't really attempted again, but we haven't given him the opportunity to either.
Wednesday May 18th-
We went to Hearst castle. Where learned what the Castle’s story is, and where those dang Zebras came from. George Hearst discovered silver here in the 1860’s. He had mined 38 tons of silver, and packed it on mules 300 some miles to San Francisco, to have it refined. He didn't really know what it was until after it was refined, and ended up getting paid $2000 a ton. With his new found riches, he came back to this area, bought a bunch of land and started running cattle. The cattle ranch is still run by a great grandson named Steven, who runs the largest grass fed beef business in the area. George’s son William Hearst, became a media tycoon, first with newspaper then with first motion picture company. William started building the castle in 1919, he was in his 50s, with the help of the first female to get an architect degree from a prestigious college, but i don't remember which one. Building took 28 years from start to finish, apparently William had a tendency to change his mind. After the completion of the castle, William hosted many famous movie stars, congressmen, presidents ect. It was always a grand affair, and always wanted people doing things, no sleeping in. There are tennis courts, an indoor and outdoor pool, his own zoo. He often was known to task his guests with performing an impromptu play after dinner. He gave them an hour to come up with the play and provided costumes that he had flown in from Hollywood. He was a very interesting man who, i had either never heard about or didn't remember anything about. The castle was donated to the state of California by the Hearst foundation, and now hosts around 750,000 guests a year there to take a tour at $25 a pop, and they offer four different tours, and you only get to see what is in each tour. If you want to see more of the castle, you pay for an additional tour. Do that math… no wonder California is rich, too bad it could completely burn up at any minute with how dry it is. The castle is fascinating. There is very intricate detailing on ceilings and trim, a lot the ceilings are inspired by renessiance art, and have faces staring down at you. There is white subway tile in the bathrooms, apparently a timeless look, that keeps coming back time and time again. Everything has grandure. We took the cottages, kitchen and wine cellar tour because really the kitchen and wine cellar are my favorite parts of any house. Plus they are less crowed tours and as much as i don't like to admit it, Kyle is rubbing off on me. There are times when I’d rather not be completely surrounded by crowds of people. This thinking paid off, there were maybe 10 of us in our tour, and like 50 in every other tour. We toured two cottages, one was a guest cottage and one was the family cottage where William and his family stayed. The guest cottage was 2500 sq ft and family cottage was around 3600 sq ft. They both had marble pillars, floors, stairs, velvet curtains, red velvet couches, and really were just absolutely beautiful. The gardens were filled with flowers, fruit trees, and ancient art that he had collected. One display had pieces that are 3500 years old. The kitchen as really awesome, all of the counters were stainless steel and also served as warming counters. There are multiple ovens, the biggest mixer I've ever seen, a kegerator, really this kitchen was a bakers/cooks heaven. His wine cellar also quite impressive. It still holds many of the original bottles of booze that William had collected. Some of the oldest bottles date back to 1800’s. Come to find out, William hated prohibition, and thought that it was silly, so before it went into affect, he had bought as much as he possibly could to keep in his cellar. Even though he had large amounts of wine and liquor in his cellar, he didn't like people getting drunk…. At all, but didn't mind having a drink or two before dinner. He kept the cellar under tight wraps and he was the only person allowed into it, every now and then he’d let his butler down there, but that was it. After our tour ended we walked around the gardens and had a little fun with photography.
After the castle we went down to Cayucos State Beach to let the pups run. Cayucos has a really pretty beach and is cool little town. There are lots of little local shops and the Brown Butter Cookie Company. I was excited about this place because I thought for sure I’d heard of them before and really wanted to go in there. Now that i think about it, I was driven only by my desire to have a cookie. Apparently I miss baking, and cookies. Not to fret though, the cookies are delicious, so it was a good choice to stop.
This is the 3500 year old piece of art
From there we went down to Morro Bay to go for a quick hike. We really liked the feel of Morro Bay, it just seems like a very relaxed town. We didn’t do much exploring yet, we just went up to the hike. The hike was above the golf course, on Black Hill. it was just supposed to be like a one mile hike, but we apparently can turn any one mile hike into a three mile hike. We use an app called AllTrails to find our hikes. Its neat because you can see other peoples treks that they have gone on and follow them. Well, the actual trails and the maps never really seem to match up well. We ended up getting half way up the mountain on the wrong side before changing course to go back to the actual trail and work our way to the top. There would be a really cool view of the valley into SLO and the coast if it wasn't foggy. It still gave some cool views though.
Thursday May 18th-
Today we went to Paso Robles, to get the oil changed in the truck. We figured we just leave the truck at the shop and go walk around town with the pups. A fine and dandy plan that would have been awesome if we would have gone to one close to town, but we didn't really do a whole lot of research as to where this place was in town. So instead of walking around town, we just walked around the industrial part of Paso. For an hour… pretty silly really. After that we ate a quick lunch in the Petco parking lot, and decided to go for another stroll on the path that was down by the river in paso. Or what used to be a river, this state is so drought stricken that the rivers have dried up. It’s very sad to see. We had thought about going for a tour of a winery, but everywhere that we looked to see if we could didn't have availability until Monday the 23rd. Oh well, not sure how we’d drive home after that anyway. Paso is beautiful wine country. We’re told it is a much slower paced alternative to the busy Napa and Sonoma area. It is home to something like 40 wineries in the area and is popular for cabernet and merlot wines.
After Paso we headed down to San Luis Obispo, aka SLO, and dubbed the Happiest City in America. It is definitely a cool little city, with lots of people running around on the narrow little streets. One of SLO's claims to fame is the Thursday night farmers market, which is held every Thursday of the year, unless its thanksgiving or raining. The farmers market didn't start until 6, so we had about three hours that we needed to kill. We went to Spencer Mackenzie’s for 2 for 1 fish tacos, the same ones we had in Ventura. We had wanted to charge up the computer and start planning out our Oregon adventures but there wasn't a means to plug in the computer. We went from there to a coffee shop, and did a little planning. When we were over trying to plan, we still had an hour to kill before the market started. So we went to the 825 Tap Room and pizza bar restaurant. Their slogan on the wall said “Life is short…. Have a blast..” This place has about 20 taps on the wall, which are all self serve taps, and the taps communicate with a wristband as to how much you pour into your glass, and charge by the ounce. It’s a great idea, but could also be a dangerous idea. They also take your credit card when they give you your bracelet, so you have a constant open running tab the entire time. If you struggled with drinking beers slowly or were on a budget, this place would not be safe for you. It would have ruined me a few times back in my college days i tell ya. But, as Kyle said, it was paradise for a poor, dumb Wisconsin boy.
We finished our beers and started walking around the farmers market. there were a lot of food vendors, political booths, and of course farm fresh veggies and fruit. Right off i was very intrigued by this booth that was making dessert dishes with fresh strawberries and brownies and what looked like to be homemade whipped cream, then I saw one getting made, with a Little Debbie brownie and cool whip, so I moved on. There was this one BBQ booth that had a line about a 1/2 block long with in 10 minutes of the start of the farmers market, it was crazy. After walking up and down the four blocks of booths, we decided to go back to that place for our dinner and see what the fuss was really all about. The line moved quickly which was nice, it was reasonably priced, and portions were huge. Now, I'm going to sound like a snob when I say this next part, but its the truth. The pulled pork was good, but I have definitely had better.. Our old neighbor and friend Steve Higgs, who runs Cooters Country Catering, makes a pulled pork that puts this one to shame in my opinion. He could make a killing at a farmers market like this.. I even had to send him pictures to let him know that his was better.
We had a great time at the farmers market, honestly I can’t recall ever going to one that was this big. Its fun to see how many people come out for it. We laughed at the fact that we didn't buy anything but raw milk from the farmers at the Farmers market, just some pulled pork. On our way home we decided to go to the beach and feed the puppies, and let them run around a bit since they'd been cooped up so long. It was a really pretty time of night and fun to see the almost full moon over the ocean.
Friday May 20th -
We have been told many times that Avila Beach south of Morro Bay is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the area, along with being very dog friendly. Today seemed like it was going to be a great day to check it out. The sun was shining. Yes, shining.. Even in the morning. For the most part on this trip we’ve seen very little sun but a lot of fog. So to wake up and not have fog was a very welcomed change. We tend to camp in places where the cell service is almost nonexistent, so a lot of our research on the places we are headed happens in route. As I was looking up info on Avila beach, cool places to see, most dog friendly areas and such, I came across a picture of Pirates Cove.. It looked stunning and seemed like something that we both would love to look at. Plus it was only like 3 miles from Avila beach, so we decided to go there first. Upon further investigation to Pirates Cove, I discovered that this is the area of the nude beach as well, this probably should have been our first indication that today may be just a little interesting. Nude beaches really are not our thing, but we decided that we would just hike down to the cove, take some pictures, and then head back to the truck. The directions to the place say to take a left and go up a hill to the parking lot. Kyle was joking that pretty much every beach we have been to, the coast was down a hill… Not up.. We followed this up hill road until it came to a dead end at a dirt parking lot, that was really in terrible condition. Huge ruts and pot holes throughout the parking area, maybe its the county’s way of keeping speed down while driving around.. The directions that I had read also said that there would be some wooded steps that we’d need to go down to get to the beach, we did not find any wooden stairs. So we asked an older gentleman wearing a Cal Poly hat and jacket where to go because obviously he was from this area. He asked us where we wanted to go and I told him the Pirates Cove. He looked at me and said well this is all the area of Pirates Cove, the nude beach is over there and thats pretty much all there is to see. I told him that I really wanted to see the actual cove, I did not have a desire to go to the nude beach. So he pointed us in the direction of the cove, and told us to take the trail to the right at the sign, the left led to the nude area. He also gave us a little history of the area, and told us that there is supposed to be gold buried somewhere in this rock.. We joked that we’d better start digging! The trail itself to the cove was approximately 0.5 mi out and back, easy peasy.
We start walking down the hill toward that cove, just admiring the scenery around us. You could see forever, and much more of the coast than we have been able to yet. It really is just beautiful here. We reached the metal sign that we were told about, and headed to our right. We made it maybe 20 yards before we saw it… The f*^”ing snake. The snake that would haunt us for the rest of the day. Before I go on I should explain why this is so bad for Kyle and I.
First, we are DEATHLY afraid of snakes. The element of surprise associated with snakes is seriously too much for us at times. If I mention that I saw a snake, Kyle will jump about 10ft in the air, and typically start running. I saw a hawk carrying a snake near Santa Barbara, mentioned to him that the hawk had a snake. He pulled his arms in as close to him as possible and begged the bird not to drop it on him, and he was DRIVING!! If I do not see the snake and get surprised by it, I start screaming like a little kid, who is deathly afraid of clowns, and IT just showed up at my birthday party. This is not something to joke around about with us. WE DO NOT HANDLE SNAKES WELL…. Not to mention we honestly have NO idea what kind of snakes we will run into out here.
Second: I have always had nightmares about snakes. Ever since I was a little kid, they are honestly just terrifying. I never get bit by snakes in my dreams, but I am always in a situation where no matter what I do I can’t get away from them. They are either falling on my head from the porch, or getting tangled in my feet as I try to run away, its just awful. The kind of dreams where you wake up and are afraid to go back to sleep because you don't want to see them again. Well, I just happened to have been having nightmares about them on Thursday night, so to see one on Friday, really was too much..
So we are walking down to see the beautiful Pirates Cove, 20 yards in we see the little bastard. Or I should say Kyle sees him, I am behind Kyle. Kyle suddenly stops, turns around and says “Holy Shit that is the biggest snake I have ever seen!!!” I instantly start panicking and run back up to the fork in the trail. I am hyperventilating, and seriously almost in tears as I explain to Kyle about my dream last night.. When he's asked my why I didn't tell him about it, I told him that I didn't want to have to relive it, now its coming to life!!! It took me a couple of minutes to regain my composure, and we realized the snake was now off the trail, and I convinced myself that it would be worth it. The snake won't bother you. You CAN do this… I just told kyle that he had to walk in front but I was hanging on to him. So we started back down the trail to the cove. Walking quite quickly to get out of the tall grass. SUCCESS! We made it.. Now to find the cove. We found a really cool cove that you could walk through to see up the coast. I feel like back in the day, this area had to be absolutely stunning, but now it has all but been destroyed by vandals. There is graffiti all over the walls of the cove, broken glass everywhere, and really it was just sad and disappointing. We knew that we weren't at the big cove, but after the snake, and the graffiti, we really didn't know if it was going to be worth it. Plus, the tide was too high to really see anything anyway. We decided to just go back to the truck, back to the original plan to go to Avila beach. We made it half way up the same trail, and that darn snake came back across in front of us!!!! NOT OK!!!! This time instead of just crossing in front of us, the snake just hung out in the trail, almost daring us to try to pass it. We tried poking it with a stick, making loud noises, anything to get the stupid thing to move!!! It wouldn't budge!! At this point my skin is crawling and I honestly feel like I might cry! After what felt like an eternity, the little bastard finally made its way across the path, and I literally ran the 1/4 mile to the truck. I wanted out of that place as quick as humanly possible.
Back to the original plan, we headed over to Avila Beach. We really just wanted to make sure we got the dogs out at this point. Plus, we had a new frisbee for them to play fetch with. We found a really nice beach that had a ton of dogs on it, and realized that would be a complete disaster, so we opted to go to the beach that only had a little family with two dogs, a little boston terrier and a super old dog who didn't seem to give a darn that we even existed. Jackpot… We got the circus our of the truck and made our way to our spot. When we passed the little family, the gentleman told us to never mind the psychotic Boston, who was actively trying to bury a tennis racket in the sand. I thought for sure that he'd try to come say hi to us as we walked past, but clearly his task at hand was much to big, and he didn't even notice us. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, our dogs LOVE the ocean. There is only one thing that they love more than swimming, (besides hunting of course), and that is swimming while fetching. So with every fetch, they give it their all. This is not necessarily a good thing at times, its usually a very scary thing. Frank is the worst, it really doesn't matter what is between him and his object that he is trying to fetch, he's going to get it. So, given the current theme of the day, we should have known that fetch probably wasn't going to be a good idea today. Kyle threw the frisbee the first time and all three of them take off like a rocket into the water to get it. Well, there also happened to be a bit of a wave coming toward the dogs at the same time, we should have been paying better attention when the frisbee was thrown, and when Frank hit the water, he was hit by the wave. He then proceeded to try to do a front flip. All I see are two back legs straight in the air, and the front of his body fully submerged under water, then his back legs slam against the water and he basically does a back flop. Kyle and I both wince, knowing that had to really hurt, it looked brutal. Poor dog, but in true Frank fashion, he grabbed the frisbee and gleefully brought it back to us, as if nothing ever happened. With in the next few throws we watched Trigger literally get pounded into the sand by a wave, and somehow Buddy ended up getting bit in the face bad enough to have a little mark of blood from someone else’s tooth. AWESOME… Now that we have successfully tried to kill our dogs, maybe its safe to say we should leave the beach. We decided to head back to Morro Bay, and maybe just rent some paddle boards or something a little more relaxing.
Driving out of Avila Beach to the highway we passed a sign that said “FUDGE, ICE CREAM, SNACKS.” Given how much we both love ice cream, we realized we have to stop. We find our parking spot, open up the side window/door of the topper for the pups to have ventalation, and start walking around. The Avila Barn, not only has Ice Cream, but they also have fresh fruits and veggies that are grown on their property, local food products, and a little farm zoo where little kids can feed the animals. We walked around the pens, admiring the goats, little ponies, and llamas, all of which were being fed by screaming children, it was entertaining. After wandering around the farm store and not really wanting to by anything, we just got our ice cream cones and headed back to the truck. We both go to our sides of the truck, so that we can close the topper windows before we start driving again. The window on my side for some reason has a tendency to slide forward, and doesn't always close. So you have to force the window backwards so that it will close without denting the frame of the window, which I have already done once, or twice. Mind you I have my ice cream cone in my hand, and then I reach up to try to pull the window backwards with one hand, and successfully slam the window down onto the top of my head, without moving it backwards at all. At least now we are both laughing as we realize how ridiculous this whole day has been so far, the only thing that is making this better for me is that I didn’t drop my ice cream while when I put a knot on my head.
We headed over to Morro Bay next. We spent the next hour chasing seagulls on the beach, collecting shells, watching people attempt to surf and admiring the sea otters in the bay. It was a very mellow end to a very eventful day.
Over the weekend, we hope to explore Morro Bay a little bit more, check out Big Sur, and the elephant seals we keep hearing about with our good friends, the Hinck’s. I will fill you in on the newest shenanigans later this week.
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