4 June 2024: Last weeks at the coast for a while

My people

Spent 6 days at the Rincon Parkway State park.  Surfed Mondo's - a surf spot for beginners.The surf was pretty small...

Mondo's

Also went to look at THE rincon break.  Awesome, but unfortunately no surf.  I did however meet Aza? who lives/squats in no-mans land by the break and provides food and beer for any surfer who wants.  "I know all the judges and policemen in town and they are all surfers so they let me stay".

Did not see any, so...

Nearly looks like Alikreukel

Rincon - according to Aza, when it works, it is a loooong ride - and I can believe him.

Just down the road from Rincon Parkway RV park is the Emma Woods RV park.  Unfortunately it is showing all the signs of the severe winter storms that has hit California.  The park is closed, the road is washed out and either it should never have been built this close to the ocean, or this is what is waiting for the whole coastline in a few years....

Global warming results are here

Abandoned

Went out to explore Ventura.  They have a massive marina where I bet 75% of the boats have not been out of the harbor in the last year....

Then Memorial Day weekend was upon us and I had not booked any place to stay...  eventually found a site at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara.  Really love SB - very very wealthy town (Oprah, etc. live here), but so so nice.  They blocked off the main street - State street - to be a 3 mile long pedestrian walk with shops, bars, live music lining the street.  Lots of students and just an amazing viby town.  Did a 30 mile cycle down the coast and it was like cycling through a aboratorium - the smells of jasmine, jacarandas, etc. were just amazing.

What the public Defenders office should look like - Santa Barbara Mission building

Unfortunately I only know the 'old' South African name for this tree, but it is beautiful

The bicycle parth

Different type of palm tree

Manicured palms... only in Santa Barbara

Flowers, pelicans and oil rigs.

Then headed back to rincon parkway where Greg, Loretta and Riley were going to be for a few days.  Hung out with them and got in at least one swim (although it was with wet suits on).

Taco's at the Ventura pier = note the jackets...

View at Rincon parkway from the lounge...

Then on Wednesday headed back to Pismo beach.  Had to take Barbie out on the beach.  Its the only beach in California where you can drive on the beach with a street car.  Barbie did not go topless, but she behaved very well and got lots of stares and thumbs up.  I even got a jeep wave or two...

Picked up the smallest Sand$ ever - that is it on the larger one just for perspective.  Unfortunately it had a hole in it

Had to get the flag... but it is what you would think it should be

Once the weekend arrived again it was a scramble to get a site booked.  With summer here, it is really difficult to get anything.  I decided that seeing that I was heading up into the mountains, the Whale had to be in tip-top condition, and it was starting to 'hesitate' again going up hills, so booked it in at Pismo for new spark plugs (only 3000 miles since the last ones, so ???).

Headed back to Morro beach state park for the weekend - only place I could get a site.  Unfortunately in California you cannot sleep in the Walmart/Cracker Barrel parking lot (else everyone would do it).  Got to the campsite only to see a 4ft long garter snake sunning itself - it was very big for a local snake, and unfortunately before I could get a pic, it was gone.

Heard some great live music in Morro Bay over the weekend

The Whale at Morro Bay State Beach park

Beautiful bicycle/walk path to town

So all the 'vyggies'/figs are from the Cape and foreign to the States - they are everywhere

On Sunday headed back to Pismo for the Whale's TLC on Monday.  As luck would have it, I saw the last part of the local 'Wheels' festival - awesome cars.

Flatbed truck

These boys were extremely noisy. The guy that got into the first one was at least 6'4"

Dried camp at the Pismo State beach

There is always one

Last day I cycled along the Pismo beach cliff on the north side

Horned owl in the butterfly grove next to the park.  There was a mother, father and 2 chicks (teenagers)

Last dinner at Fin's on the beach with some live music

Monarchs are just amazing.  They come here in winter and cluster in the grove trees during storms

The state park at Pismo

One morning lots of small dead fish on the beach.  Could not figure out why

That is a big blob of oil.  If you have offshore drilling....

Pit stop at a brewery after a long cycle

Figured out where pelicans go to rest

See the holes through the rocks

Guano

And so on to Yosemite with an (unfortunately not) fixed Whale....

19 May 2024: Barbie and the Whale

Landed in Rincon again on Sunday

The week started back in Burbank with Greg and Loretta.  Decided on Wednesday to cycle around the 'Hollywood Sign' mountain.  Serendipitous, really surprised by how beautiful the area is.  Turned out to be about 30 miles of cycling, but really interesting.  End point was the Bronson caves - which is really just a man made tunnel in a quarry, but then, this is Hollywood.

Los Feliz neighborhood with Jakaranda type trees

The Griffith observatory

Someone had too much time on their hands - in the quarry by the tunnel

The great cave!!

The touristy part of the sign

View from the hood

This is Hollywood after all

Somewhere random.  The area was well setup for cycling

Saw a starlink rocket get launched from VanDenBerg spaceport (thanks Trump) and Elmo, and saw the booster rocket come down again... I think somewhere near the Baja peninsula.

Headed to a new Thousand Trails (TT) park in Soledad canyon on Friday.  Only 40 miles from Burbank, so Greg and Loretta came to stay for Saturday night - to see the non-existent Northern Lights...

Nice lights, but are they North...

Met up with the Solo Escapees gang.  They were there for a few more days and were then heading to the beach at Rincon.  Had a 'braai' on their last night.  One of the Carol's in the group (there were 5 Carol's at one stage, but now there are only 2 lefts) has this awesome built-in gas barbecue in one of her slide-outs that she setup herself.  Hits a button on the hydraulic slide comes out.  Cook your food, wait for everything to cool down and then hits the button again, and all done.

Masterful design - could apply for honorary South African citizenship based on this

James moving out

Carol(1) moving out

Carol(2) moving out

 

Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the front-end connection on Barbie to connect to the new tow bar I bought... unfortunately the light bulb is still dim on that front.  Also took Barbie off-road for the first time - down a dry sandy riverbed.  It is just the best little off-road car around.  Had lots of flashbacks to going down the Dune in Noordhoek to surf with ChrisJ.

Also went to Vasquez rocks with Kathy (the Solo who stayed behind).  Was a place where Vasquez (a Mexican bandidos) hid from the law.  Also the place were a lot of Star Trek scenery was shot.  Kathy has been full-timing for a number of years, spent a lot of time in Kentucky as a dog groomer, and now has 2 fluffball dogs that still has a grooming table, etc. for their weekly personal hairdo grooming.

Looks like a worm from Dune

Blooming yucca's everywhere

Started noticing a number of hitch-hikers and generally unwashed people on the road near the RV park.  They were all heading to the nearby town - Acton.  Turns out, the RV camp was close by the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail - click the link) and these were all through-hikers.  We were at about mile 440 from the start of the trail at the Mexican border.  Still had another 2,200 miles to go to the Canadian side.  There was also a restaurant/saloon in Acton - the 49'er - which catered for the hikers.  The bartender was very busy organizing the local 'Uber' driver to go pickup hikers, etc. and they had about 15 tents pitched behind the saloon where hikers were taking a 0 day and just resting.  I went in there to get a photo for our own hiker (Jack) for when he does the PCT.  Started talking to a group of people sitting around a table in the backyard.  One girl was from Cape Town and had been working after school for a few years to get the money together to do the hike, another had done the AT (Appalachian Trail on the east coast) twice, the Arizona trail, and a few other ones including the Continental Divide trail and just needed to finish this one and he would have done the triple crown - and he was not even 30 years old yet...

Cape Town local on the left

The 49'er

Animal sightings for the week was 1 Bobcat (could not get a photo, but basically a large cat with a stumpy tail and very shy), 1 desert rosy boa (also no photo, but follow the link and about 4ft long), 2 deer while cycling and some falcon.

Then...  got my first real bite for a job from a consulting firm based in Chicago.  Got the first interview setup for Monday with a company that I had consulted for back in 2007.  Was very excited, except that the cell/WiFi reception in Soledad canyon was spotty to say the least.  I decided that I would leave on Sunday (was booked in until Tuesday) and head for Rincon where the cell reception was good and I could do the call without panicking.  So, who knows, the holiday might be over soon...

Barbie with an oil change and a wash

5 Mayo 2024: Thousand Trails

 

Crazy big country.  Desert with snow-capped mountains near Phoenix

So landed in Burbank on Wednesday, stayed over at Greg and Loretta's for 1 night and then set off back to the Thousand Trails park in Menifee to go get Barbie.

My new site at Wilderness Valley RV park

On Thursday I uber'ed down to Falbrook to pick up and pay. Drove Barbie back to the RV park without any problems.  New engine is working great - thanks Petroworks.  The did screw up a few minor issues not related to the engine, but that's for another day.  Max speed is about 50mph - so no freeway driving. Stick shift is going to take a while to get used to, but it really is a fun little car.  I did get a lot of waves from people - probably was just them trying to get out of the way of the 'beast', but I will take it as a wave...

All my modes of transport back at the campsite.

The RV park was different this time.... no pickleball players - they had all moved on to the next park, and there was no one that wanted to play.  Did play some cards - a game called sweep which was lots of fun.

The bird life was also great.  Seems all the geese eggs hatched as there were chicks everywhere.

Waiting for the family to cross....

An adult heron of some type.  See the white tussle that hangs from his head...

Many hummingbirds