SLO Week Three - Culture and Kayaks

Tolosa Winery

(A double click on any photo enlarges the photo.)

 

Week Three in SLO began with a heavy dose of irony.  Having escaped the horrendous sub-zero temperatures and mounting snowfall in Minnesota, we awoke Monday morning, shivering.  The furnace of our SLO rental home had died.  Temperatures drop to the forties, and occasionally thirties, at night, so we turn the furnace on at bedtime and off when we set out on the morning dog walk.  (All Minnesota friends and family are permitted to snicker.)

We called Mary Ann, our landlady, who called our next door neighbor, Todd, who happens to be a construction contractor.  Todd fixed it temporarily.  He figured out it was caused by a faulty thermostat, which will be replaced tomorrow.

The silver lining is that we met Todd, a very nice man.  He and I chatted for a while when he finished. I learned that behind the privacy fence that separates our yards, he has a wife, a three-year old daughter, a yellow lab and chickens.  "The chickens don't bother you, do they?" he worried.  We assured him they didn't.  He brought us some eggs, the first fresh eggs either of us can remember having.  Delicious.

Fresh Easter eggs from our neighbor's back yard.  The shells are actually different colors, but I've enhanced the color a bit on the computer.

On Monday night, we cracked.  After two weeks of eating fresh and healthy local foods and eschewing cookies, ice cream and chocolate, I couldn't take it any more.  Around nine-thirty, I set down the mystery book I was reading, got the car keys and took off.  Fifteen minutes later I was sharing my cache of Hershey bars (with almonds) with Carol.

On Tuesday night we experienced true joy as eight-year old Aidan read a book to us, even sharing the beautiful pictures via FaceTime.  He read "The Cat's Meow," a delightful children's book written by my friend, Bruce Ehalt.  If you have a small child in your life, I highly recommend the book.  Bruce, a second grade teacher, did a masterful job with it.  (You can get the book on amazon.com, or from me for slightly cheaper.)

Rowdie loves California.  It seems there is not one walk where she doesn't score some crusts of bread or something even better.  This week she latched onto a full bagel.  And then there's the grass, man!

Rowdie finds some good grass, man.

Highlights of the week included a kayak tour of of Port San Luis, leading to Point San Luis lighthouse.  Jessica, our guide and a marine biologist, was full of interesting information.  We were accompanied by Brett, who took the pictures.  Jess and Brett were great company.  We wore wetsuits for the first time as we paddled amid sea lions, sea otters and harbor seals.

Aidan el Plano with Jess, our kayaking guide, and Brett, our photographer

On Friday, we hiked the Point Buchon Trail, a lovely, level (read easy) path along the coastal cliffs.  The trail is on property owned by Pacific Gas and Electric.  At the end of the trail, we ate our lunch as we looked out over the Pacific Ocean and at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.  From the time it was completed in 1973 until this day the facility has been a contentious issue here. (It is, after all, built on a fault line.)

Carol on the Point Buchon Trail

View from the Point Buchon Trail

Sea Cave at a beach along the trail.  I got my feet wet when a surprise wave visited.

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant

On Saturday, we attended a Bach concert in the Mission San Luis Obispo, performed by the Cal Poly Early Music Ensemble.  The two-hundred-forty year old mission was a beautiful setting for beautiful music.

And, finally, some more images of San Luis Obispo.

Spheres by Ivan McLean (2014)  Cal Poly Campus

Spheres

Neighborhood source of delicious sandwiches

Wall of the High Street Market and Deli

A Classic Pick-up

Relax!  You'll get there.

San Luis Obispo - Week Two: Records Fall & Visitors Arrive

It's been quite a week in the little city of San Luis Obispo.  Early in the week, Carol and I rode our bicycles to the Cal Poly campus to see an exhibit of the photos of Vivian Maier.  Never heard of her?  Join the crowd.  The exhibit was entitled "A Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma."  She was, for the most part, a nanny as lively, creative and whimsical as Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp.  Her private life was as private as a life gets.  She left few footprints, except for her photography.  Vivian took over 150,000 photographs in her life, never telling anyone about them, never exhibiting them.  They were discovered by accident in a storage locker after her death.  Her photos are as interesting as her life was mysterious.  Check out the website, look at her photos and learn a little about this mysterious and talented photographer.  For our Minneapolis friends, an exhibit of Vivian Maier's work opens at the Minneapolis Photo Center  (2400 N. 2nd St., Suite 200, Mpls.) Friday, January 24.  The link to the Photo Center is an interesting Star Tribune article on Vivian Maier.

On Thursday, the 16th, the National Weather Service proclaimed San Luis Obispo the hottest spot in the nation!  Seriously.  It reached ninety-one degrees.  The previous local high temperature for the date was eighty degrees in 1948!

As the temperatures cooled to the eighties, the visitors began to arrive.  My nephew, Joe, and his wife, Susan, showed up for a long weekend.  Joe and Susan live in Modesto, a couple hours' drive to the north.  Carol and I were so pleased that they were able to spend time with us.  We hiked, went to the beach, took in the downtown farmers' market, went out to dinner (creekside outdoor dining at Novo, in downtown) and just hung out together.  Their visit was a highlight of the month for us.

In the first photo, I refer to Morro Rock, which lies in the distance.  A morro is a volcanic plug.  There is a line of nine morros between San Luis Obispo and the Pacific Ocean, seven miles away.  In SLO, Bishop's Peak is the first of the morros.  The final morro is Morro Rock, pictured below.

Carol, Susan and Joe at Morro View (Morro Rock is seen in the distance, jutting out from the Pacific.)

Breakfast al fresco in our back yard

View of Laguna Lake from Irish Hills, on the hike to Morrow View

Our other visitor arrived around the same time and joined us on our adventures.  Aidan el Plano arrived via email.  Do you remember the children's book, Flat Stanley?  Flat Stanley got flattened (by a steamroller, I think) and from then on he got to travel the world in envelopes mailed by his parents.  Our grandson Aidan's second grade Spanish Immersion class read Flat Stanley.  As a related project, Aidan drew a picture of Flat (el Plano) Aidan.  Paul emailed him to us (a nice twenty-first century twist), and Aidan el Plano has been having adventures with us.  He will remain with us for the duration of our trip.  We'll keep you up-to-date on his experiences.

Aidan el Plano and Joe at Avila Beach, on the Pacific Ocean

Aidan el Plano got buried in sand at the beach by Pop-Pop

Aidan el Plano tries on Grandma's flip-flops

Aidan el Plano and the rest of us took a long hike from Avila Beach to Shell Beach

Hang glider seen from the hiking trail

John the Parrot

We met John the Parrot on our hike between Avila Beach and Shell Beach.  His owner, Tom, joked that his mother was a witch and turned his father into a parrot and that Tom has had to care for him ever since.  I think he was joking; this is California, after all.  After a chat, Tom rode off on his bicycle with John perched on the handlebars.

THIS JUST IN!  CBS reports on This Morning:  Saturday that San Luis Obispo is one of the travel hotspots.  Before you get too impressed, I have to tell you that Pittsburgh, Providence and Estonia also made the list. 

I spent some time downtown with my camera this week, looking for things interesting, if not obvious.  Here's what I found.

Church at Corner of Pismo and Morro Streets

Historic Palm Theater

Historic Fremont Theater

Bee Bee Works His Magic, 2008
Carol Pausen and Stephen Plowman

Detail, Bee Bee Works His Magic

Building Detail, 868 Higuera

Building Detail, 868 Higuera

Building Detail, 998 Monterey, Koberl at Blue Restaurant

San Luis Obispo - Week One

We made it!

We arrived at 581 Lawrence Drive, SLO, our home away from home for January around four in the afternoon on Sunday.  By seven-thirty, we had procured two pretty decent bikes from a guy right here in SLO who advertised on Craig's List.   Carol is the Queen of Getting Things Done.  Whether it's dog-friendly motels or serviceable bicycles on demand, she's the go-to person.  No one better!

The Queen of Getting Things Done is...
Done for the Day!

Mindful of Rowdie's discomfort on the twisting mountain roads into SLO last year, we gave her a motion sickness pill and avoided the mountain shortcut we took last year.  Between the drugs (which left her feeling a bit la la la) and a route through the valley that was straight as an arrow, she arrived in fine form.  I didn't like giving her the medication, although we knew it might be necessary.  I didn't like seeing our perky puppy so dazed.  We'll try to plan a departure route that will let us avoid medicating her.

On Monday, I washed the RAV4, removing several pounds of Utah and Nevada desert.  The RAV is red again.  The Queen of Getting Things Done found live jazz at a local coffee house, so we headed downtown last night.  Had a good chai latté sitting among the college kids doing homework, but there was no evidence of live music to be seen or heard.  Carol inquired, and a waitress pointed out the postings for every night of the week.  She also said to check out their website, which Carol had done already.  That's how we knew there was supposed to be jazz last night!  Same thing happened last January.  The website says more (?) jazz this Thursday.  Maybe we'll try again.

You can run, but you can't hide.  Minnesota turned abysmally cold right after we left.  Temperatures have been waaaay below zero for the past several days.  Before we could even begin to feel smug, Pamela, our house sitter, called to report that the cold water pipe to the downstairs bathroom sink has frozen.  So there we were, at the movies watching "Nebraska" and I was jumping out of my seat every twenty minutes to answer the cell phone for Pamela's latest update.

She's doing all the right things about it, but the temps are still below zero and the pipe is still frozen.  Temperatures will rise tomorrow.  Hopefully water will flow.  We've run, but winter has dogged us.  We couldn't hide.

No Frozen Pipes Here

Everybody has raved about "Nebraska," so we couldn't wait to see it.  Carol and I may be the only two people who did not like it.  Couldn't fathom what people were so excited about.

January is Restaurant Month in SLO.  We celebrated with an exquisite meal at Buona Tavola, and then wandered downtown, ending up on Higuera Street, where the Farmers' Market was in full swing.  It seems as if half the town shows up to stroll the streets, pick up fresh produce, listen to live music and pick up something to eat from a tantalizing array of street vendors.

Thursday Farmers' Market in Downtown SLO

We've joined the local YMCA.  This morning I attended a meditation class and followed it with beginning Tai Chi.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Tai Chi.  I'm becoming California Marc.

We took our first bike ride on Friday, about eight miles to Avila Beach.  We ordered cool drinks from Hula Hut and ate our sandwiches at a sidewalk table as we took in the glimmering Pacific, listened to the surf and allowed the bright sun to warm our Minnesota bones.  I wandered ankle deep into the ocean and retreated quickly, settling in for a nap as Carol read.  The return ride over the same route somehow became much longer.  We were whipped when we arrived home.

Avila Beach Bike Bums

We added local culture to our pursuits this year.  On Saturday night we attended a beautiful solo piano recital on the Cal Poly campus (California Polytechnic Institute).  The chairman of the music department, W. Terrence Spiller, performed works of Bach, Bartok, Ravel and Chopin.  We are looking forward to a Bach concert at the end of the month that will be performed in the old Mission San Luis Obispo.

Sunday we took our first foray into wine country near Paso Robles.  We took Rowdie along, since we figured she'd be happier riding around with us than sitting alone at the house.  Wrong!  The twisting, rolling country roads upset her.  How could we have forgotten?  We visited three wineries and found a couple nice wines for our shelf back in SLO.

We went in.

Proulx Vineyards

An old workhorse

So engrossed were we in the lovely countryside, the good wine tasting and good conversations with winery staff and fellow visitors that we forgot about the mundane things of day-to-day living, like paying attention to the fuel gauge.  We pulled into the Tablas Creek Winery with the needle firmly on Empty.  After learning all about Tablas Creek's wines, I had to ask the whereabouts of the nearest gas station.  "Nine downhill miles," was the reply.  Eight and a half of them were on a lonely two-lane country road.  Good thing they were downhill!  We made it.

P.S.  Water is flowing again in our pipes back home.

Road Trip '14

Our drive from frigid Minneapolis to California this year was uneventful, the way you want a two thousand mile westward trek in January to be.

We set out in the dark, coffee and conversation getting us through the darkness into the first light of day.  I told Carol that I felt a certain reluctance about leaving.  It's a sadness I first noticed the night before a wilderness canoe trip a few years ago, and it has visited me on every departure in recent years.  We leave behind our son, our daughter, her husband, our grandchildren, our friends, our day-to-day life.  There is a soft pang of loss, even though the event of travel is something to celebrate.  There is really no explaining it.  I myself think that it has something to do with aging.  We change with age, physically of course, but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually, call it what you want.  Leaving home, leaving family is leaving security and intimacy; and I feel it more now than I used to.

I've met many people in my travels who thrive on the road, for whom you might say the the road is their home.  They are the ones who can journey for months or even years.  I've always loved to travel and to explore new places.  I still do.  But after a while, I am ready to return home to family, friends, routines, my own bed.  

I've never told this to anyone.  It felt good to hear my voice saying all this in the darkness to someone who cares.  It was reassuring to hear Carol's voice in return, acknowledging and accepting.

Such thoughts at the start of an adventure.  As we sped across Nebraska, the sun rose at our backs and through the day so did the temperatures.  When we stepped out of the car in North Platte, the temperature was a balmy forty-nine degrees.

I like driving across Nebraska.  Still in the Great Plains, the terrain begins to lose the tabletop quality of the Midwest, rolling hills offering a hint of what is to come.  We passed by the towns of Hope, Friend and Aurora, encouraging names meant, perhaps, to dispel the sense of loneliness in the vastness of the landscape.

Museums!  The Plainsman Museum, Danish Windmill Museum, Pioneer Museum, Robert Henri Museum, Pony Express Station, Fort Cody.  There is no lack of places to stop and learn something.  Driven by the promise of springtime temperatures in California, we kept the speedometer locked in at eighty.

(You can click on any photo to see it full screen.)

On the banks of the Platte River

On the second day we passed through Denver under sunny skies.  I-76 became I-70, named here "The Grand Army of the Republic Highway."  The temperature hovered in the fifties.  Through the mountain passes, the roads were dry.  Perfect.  One day later, as we prepared to leave from Grand Junction, CO, we saw that temperatures in Denver had plummeted and that the city and the nearby Rockies were getting several inches of snow.  We got through just in time.

Barn In Georgetown, in the Rockies west of Denver

Leaving Grand Junction on Day Three with the news of the storms behind us on our minds, we drove into the vast expanse of Utah under threatening skies and swirling snow.  My heart beat a little faster.  Was this a major storm we had somehow missed warnings of?  We were heading into a couple hundred miles of rugged, inhospitable country.  We seemed to be the only car on the road.

Within a half hour, we passed through the snow squall.  The skies cleared.  Other vehicles, mostly trucks, materialized around us.  Heart rate returned to normal.  The stunning, bleak beauty of Utah lay before us.  Exits like "Yellow Cat - No Services" appeared.  There was no sign of Yellow Cat.  Indeed all exits seemed to be exits to nowhere, as if you could drive off the highway and just disappear.  A wire fence paralleled I-76, the only sign of human activity beyond the four lanes of pavement. 

Nothing grows out here - not a tree, not a shrub.  There is not one building in sight.  The sense of solitude is complete.  It is the best two hundred miles of the journey west.  I'll let the photos do the talking.

Heading west through Utah

Utah

Utah

Uranium country, Utah

And then we turned south onto I-15 at Salina.  The magic spell was broken.  First shrubs appeared on the hillsides, then pine trees, then billboards.  Soon we approached the Arizona border, nearing our destination of Overton, Nevada.  The temperature outside was sixty degrees.  We had left winter behind.

Our motel in Overton was pretty basic, a mom and pop place that was clean and provided a good breakfast.  I was happy to pay my money to local owners, a husband, wife and daughter with whom we could chat.

We began the last day of our journey with a leisurely drive along the North Shore Road of Lake Mead.  Then it was Henderson, Nevada, Starbucks, a view of Lost Vegas to the north and onto I-15.  Next stop San Luis Obispo.