San Luis Obispo '15 - Music and a New Adventure

Random thoughts from Central Coast California:

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Vineyard, Paso Robles

One of the first things we noted when we arrived  in San Luis Obispo this year was the green hillsides.  Last year everything was brown.  They've had some rain that greened up the landscape, but not nearly enough to put much of a dent in the drought.

Our Sunday morning routine is to walk Rowdie to the local Starbucks to buy the New York Times.  Then we continue on to the Black Horse Café to sit in the sunshine and have our coffee.  I was chatting with the barista one Sunday as he fixed our coffee drinks and I mentioned where I had bought the newspaper.  He said with a certain amount of awe, "You went to Starbucks for the newspaper and then came here for coffee?"  I think I made his day.

The Black Horse has passable croissants, although their spelling leaves something to be desired.  I was worried about angry holy people when I saw the sign, "Crossaints."

Like people making small talk everywhere, people you encounter here invariably say something to the effect of, "It's a nice day today, isn't it!"  I smile and agree and think, How can you tell?  They all are.

A Nice Day in Los Osos Valley

80 degrees!

Not only are the days all nice here, but they're longer too.  At first I thought it was my imagination, my delight at having left Minnesota winter behind.  My iPhone informed me that San Luis Obispo has a latitudinal advantage over the Twin Cities.  The winter days have in fact about forty-five minutes more daylight.

SLO is a city of about 40,000 people.  I don't know if the city has a "Dark Nights" policy to control light blight, but the sky at night is brilliant with clear, sparkling stars.

We took a good hike up Cerro San Luis.  In the line of nine morros, called the Nine Sisters, that stretch from San Luis Obispo to the Pacific Ocean, Cerro San Luis is the closest to us.  It was a good workout on a lovely day.  (They all are.)  At one point I saw a hawk gliding over the valley below.  As I watched, the hawk tucked its wings close to its body and dove vertically with astonishing speed out of my sight.  Seconds later, it flew off in the distance, its prey gripped in its claws.

View of some of the Nine Sisters

This year we discovered that the Animal Science Department of California Polytechnic Institute (known around here as Cal Poly) has its own livestock and meat packing facilities.  We've also discovered that they produce quality, local beef, pork and chicken.

Our Local Source for Good Beef

Our other discovery this year is the music scene in and around San Luis Obispo.  We already knew about Cal Poly's music department and have heard a piano recital on campus and their annual Bach in the Mission concert.  But we've also ventured out to local spots for more variety.  We've heard a locally well-known jazz trio.  At an unlikely event, we danced to a popular local group, Louie and the Lovers at a Martin Luther King Day event at the local Grange Hall.  It was impossible to stay in your seat when they began to play.  At that event, I struck up a conversation with a man who told me about Wednesday night blues in Pismo Beach.  Carol and I set out the next Wednesday to find the Shell Café in Pismo.  The Shell Café isn't a place you go for the best food or wine, but the place is packed on Wednesday nights to hear local blues musicians jam.  The beer is cold, the blues are hot and the joint is jumpin' on Wednesday nights.

Even our local brewpub, Bang the Drum, gets in the act. On Monday nights they feature "Songwriters at Play," a chance for local musicians to show off their skills.  This week we walked over, sat on the patio under the stars and heard some good folk and blues musicians.

With all the above, we haven't forgotten to taste wine.  Last week we took a drive up to Paso Robles, which not only produces some excellent wines but looks so much like Tuscany that you expect to hear locals speaking Italian.

Villa San Juliette.  Tuscany?  Paso Robles?

Olive Oil, Step 1

Of course, there's also the hiking.  Carol's knee gave her some trouble for a while, so our hikes have been limited.  But she's easing back onto the trails.  In addition to the Cerro San Luis hike, we took a docent-led hike through sand dunes at Grover Beach.

Sand Dunes Panorama

Sand Dunes Up Close

And one final discovery for Marc and Carol - a new (for us) water sport.  At Port San Luis, where last year we kayaked amidst frolicking seals and otters, we tried our hand at stand-up paddleboarding (SUP).   I found it to be not as easy as it looks.  Carol was a natural.  A good afternoon.

SUP, Dude?

A natural! 

Success at learning how to tow a disabled boarder.

This was practice getting back on the board.  I did not fall off.

Enter the contest:  Supply the caption.

Ernie Banks died on January 23.  He was one of baseball's greats and a good man to the core.  The first black man to ever put on a Cubs uniform, he came to the major leagues only a couple years after Jackie Robinson underwent the withering torment of desegregating major league baseball.  What trials must Mr. Cub also have gone through.  Yet he wore a smile every day and radiated joy.  He acknowledged that he was not an activist, but his personality was a beacon of optimism in difficult days for blacks.

As a boy I got to see Ernie Banks play, along with so many other mid-twentieth century greats.  Lanky.  Wiry.  Skinny.  Whatever word you choose, he was an unlikely power hitter who hit over five hundred home runs in his Hall of Fame career.  Much like another skinny hero of the day, Henry Aaron, Banks's swing looked effortless.  His quick wrists flicked the bat with astounding speed, power and effectiveness.

Next week we'll be packing up and heading south to Santa Barbara.  More from Central Coast then.
Happy trails!

San Luis Obispo '15 - Settling in, Citrus & Tango!

We're wrapping up our first week in San Luis Obispo, but first a final word or two about the road trip.  In the southern California desert, we passed an exit for Zzyzx Road and the unincorporated town of Zzyzx, which has its own entry on Wikipedia.

Also, I always said that when Carol retired we'd never see the sunrise in Minnesota in January again.  On our third try, we achieved that goal, hitting the road in the dark on Jan. 1.  (Previously a day of rest after New Year's Eve parties brought us a Minnesota sunrise.)

We brought our own ancient road bikes along this time, foregoing the adventure of buying and selling on Craig's List.  I spent a pleasant afternoon in the sun cleaning winter gunk accumulated over 2,000 miles from the bikes.

Our new SLO home is pretty tiny, but we are learning to dance around the place without stepping on each other's feet.   Rowdie is a little slower learning the dance steps.  The yard boasts of an orange tree with delicious, sweet fruit and lime trees whose fruit complements a gin and tonic nicely.  Next to our yard is a community garden to which we have access - herbs and all the lettuce we'll need.

Speaking of dancing, we walked to the Grange Hall last night for a tango lesson.  The Grange Hall also hosts a Tuesday farmer's market, where some delicious local salsas and tortilla chips are available.

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Our Front Yard

Our Neighborhood

On the morning dog walk, ten minutes from our home

More benefits of walking the dog in SLO

And still more!  My treasure at the end of the rainbow!

In our first week, we have hiked, cycled, gotten our library cards, joined the local YMCA, visited vineyards, had a beach picnic, taken in two stunning exhibits at the local art museum, heard a talk by one of the artists currently exhibited, dined out twice (it's Restaurant Month!) and attended a piano concert at Cal Poly.  Wow!  That's everything; I guess we might as well come home.

"Reflections," Photo Exhibit at San Luis Obispo Museum of Art

"An Ocean Garden:  the secret life of seaweed"

We heard Josie Iselin, the artist who created "An Ocean Garden," speak today.  My photo doesn't do her work justice.  Check out this exhibit and her other work at www.josieiselin.com.  She scans actual specimens of seaweed and then prints them.

Denizen of the SLO Art Museum

We're also eating Mediterranean.  Salads, cheese, wine, avocados (practically given away at local stores and farmers' markets), delicious olives.  The other day I took guacamole and chips to the yard for lunch.  When I sat down, I noticed that among the chips had mysteriously appeared two Oreos.  No end to the healthfulness!

The "Y" had an open house yesterday, featuring several twenty-minute demo classes, a great opportunity to try out options and come face to face with reality.  "Boot Camp" sounded fun but turned out to be a rude reminder that I am no longer thirty years old, or forty, or...    "Zumba" - work out to Latin music - how cool would that be?  After making it ten minutes through Boot Camp, I decided to watch Zumba from the sidelines.  What was I thinking?  (Note:  Carol does Zumba.  I have new respect for her physical abilities!)  I tried "Into Action," which uses music "from Sinatra to Swing to the Supremes"  and is "appropriate for seniors and beginners."  I think I found my match.

Here's the rest of the week in pictures.

No Trail?  No Problem!

Winter, Avila Beach

Downtown SLO Detail

Stenner Creek Hike

Stenner Creek Hike

Who knows where the trails will lead us?

Western Road Trip '15

Good-bye, Winter!
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Day #1  Minneapolis to North Platte, Nebraska.  Directions haven't changed.  Drive south on I-35.  Turn right on I-80.  Stop in North Platte.  No snow to speak of in Iowa and Nebraska.  I like winter brown.  Uneventful day, the best kind on a long road trip.   All three of us make it in and out of North Platte in good health - a first!

Nebraska Unadorned

Day #2  North Platte to Grand Junction, Colorado.  A five hundred mile piece of cake after our big 650-mile first day.  Another departure in the pre-dawn darkness.  The black sky softens behind us as we reach the Colorado border.  Crop land becomes grazing land for cattle, who appear as black dots on the white hills, bold flecks of contrast in the faint light of early dawn.  Western sky in front of us a canvas of pastels.  Over my shoulder, fierce oranges and reds.  Sunrise at seven-twenty.  We are definitely in the West now.

Crossing the Rockies past Denver we encounter a traffic jam!  Cars as far as we can see.  We cover twenty miles in two hours.  At least the scenery is stunning.

Grand Junction an upscale city with wine bars and French restaurants, but we're too tired to do the town.  Settle for La Quinta's outdoor spa under the light of a full moon.  We fill the tank at $1.94/gal.

Grand Junction, CO, facing east at sunset

Day #3  Grand Junction to Summerlin, Nevada.  My favorite segment of this journey every year.  Leaving sophisticated Grand Junction behind in the dark, we streak into the empty, solemn, wild grandeur of Utah.  A two hundred eighty-mile meditation. 

Highway Department sign warns, "Eagles on Highway."  None today.  Towns - Lone Tree, Silt, Sulpher, Gypsum.  No Services.  Carol remarks that we are leaving the clouds behind us.  Indeed a cover of brilliant, unbroken blue everywhere.

Highway Department signs seemingly every five miles - "View Site."  All of Utah is a View Site.  Carol works on the NY Times crossword.  I drive, nursing a Starbuck's dark roast and feasting on the one-hundred-eighty degree view.  We cross the Green River.

Sunrise in the Utah Wilderness, the last of the day's clouds

At the 170 mile mark, Carol takes over driving.  Open spaces give way to steep, forested mountains that crowd the highway.  Driving, I could take in the big picture.  Freed of responsibility, I can zoom in on astounding details.  A riot of animal tracks on a hillside.  Crows feeding on a large carcass.  A battered shed, defeated by time and the elements.  In the forest, a small, white wooden cross, festooned with a Christmas wreath - lonely splash of color.  Fifteen miles to Salina.  Now tire tracks through the snow in the forest, from nowhere to nowhere.  Steep, snow-covered canyon walls.  Then, improbably, several miles of brown landscape.  A hawk on a bare tree branch.

Salina breaks the spell.  Days Inn, Motel 6, Shell, Conoco, BP, McDonalds, Subway.  At 11:30 we turn south on I-15, 220 miles to Las Vegas.  It seems as if the tawdriness of Sin City reaches all the way up here.  The biggest automobile/RV graveyard I have ever seen.  Billboards.  Dilapidated buildings.  Sad-looking retirement communities.  Signs of a hardscrabble life.  The beautiful Utah wilderness is still out there, a half mile beyond ragged human enterprise.

Then, Cedar City, Utah, home of an annual Shakespeare Festival.  Signs for Cedar Breaks National Monument and Bryce Canyon National Park.  I've been to those places, and they have left their mark on me.  Thirty miles north of St. George, the thermometer reads 35 degrees, and the hills are brown.  We have left winter behind until next year.

St. George, Utah, where we spent a night two years ago.  The Latter Day Saints' white temple gleams in the bright sun.  Palm trees.  Magnificent, erect cedars ring a small country cemetery.  And...
Baseball!  Not one, but two games in progress on green ball fields.

We touch Arizona for thirty minutes, descending into a canyon, domineering vertical rock cliffs squeezing the interstate tight.  We round a bend and, in an instant, are spit out into the vast desert.  Forty degrees.  Forty-five.  Fifty.  We switch drivers for the last time.  Coatless, I walk Rowdie, who is intent on investigating new and strange scents.

Summerlin, close to Red Rock Canyon, too close to Las Vegas.  Hard for Rowdie to find an unpaved patch on which to do what needs to be done.  We arrive early enough to drive the thirteen-mile loop through the red rocks and to take one hike.

A tad too late to catch the "red" at Red Rock Canyon...

...but in time for the moonrise!

 Day #4  Summerlin to San Luis Obispo.  We can see the finish line.  Just want to get there.  We stop for lunch in springtime in a park in Wasco, California.  A real treat - lunch sitting still, absent the thrum of tires on asphalt.  Five guys taking batting practice on the ball field.  A batter, a pitcher, three outfielders.  Number three positions himself beyond the outfield fence; these guys can hit!  Kids rolling themselves dizzy down hills of green grass.  No need for a sled to have fun.  A roller park nearby, the click of skateboard wheels on concrete hillocks.

San Luis Obispo!  Our first stop is the neighborhood coop for a bottle of local organic red wine.  Later, a break from unpacking, we sit in our sunny yard and sip.  The road is behind us.  What adventures await?