Since I had a conflicting event on Cristy’s birthday we decided to celebrate a few days early by taking trip to Paso Robles and more importantly, Cambria. Cambria is Cristy’s favorite town in the world and would live there if she could. If she did live there, I’d visit her as often as I could. I can’t stand fog. At any rate we hitched up our Lance travel trailer on Sunday morning and headed out.
We left around 9:30 am which put us in Coalinga around 11:30 am, my lunch time for the past 40 years when I was working. We pulled into Harris Ranch and parked in their large gravel lot just adjacent to the Harris Ranch Airport. We took about a 45 minute break to make a sandwich and just relax for a bit. After eating and stretching we got back on the road. With the wind at our backs we got good gas mileage and it was only an hour and fifteen minute drive to Sun Outdoors Central Coast Wine Country Resort. Such an easy to remember name. There were three other RV’s checking in when we got there but it was a short wait and soon we were backing into our site. We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing. Ah, retirement life. For dinner we headed into Paso Robles and got some great food at Mediterranean Spice. I got a personal pizza and Cristy got a beef shawarma platter. It was VERY good.
The next day we made a bee line to Cambria and, more specifically, Cambria Coffee Company. This little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop serves the best coffee in Cambria. They are located in the West Village closer to the shoreline than much of the rest of town. There are lots of boutique shops lining the streets in the West Village and is Cristy’s happy place. After coffee I left Cristy to explore all the shops while I headed down to Moonstone Beach, a part of Hearst / San Simeon State Park. I wanted to do a Parks On The Air activation of the State Park. I also wanted to try out a couple of different antennas that a friend had loaned me. After spending a couple of hours making FT8 contacts on the beach Cristy texted that she was done. I cleaned up all my radio equipment and drove over and picked her up.
We had lunch at the West End Bar and Grill. It was nothing to write home about but it did the job. We headed back down to Moonstone Beach where I had done my POTA activation and took some time walking on the beach. Cristy really enjoyed hunting through the tiny moonstones on the beach.
On Tuesday we headed BACK to Cambria, have I said yet that this is Cristy’s favorite place in the world? We got coffee at Cambria Coffee Rosasters again and then made a quick dash to Cambria downtown to Linn’s Easy As Pie Cafe. Linn’s is probably the best restaurant in Cambria. We met the owner last time we were there and he is a very personable guy who loves his customers and his restaurant. The Easy As Pie Cafe is a place to grab quick bites to eat as well as slices of their wonderful pies. We just stopped in to grab a jar of Olallieberry Jam.
Afterwards it was on to the main thrust of the day. Cristy let me have one day to do some more POTA activations. We stopped at three places where I was able to activate:
- US-1157 Harmony Headlands State Park
- US-3418 Cayucos State Beach
- US-3480 Morro Strand State Beach
After the first two POTA stops we drove down to Morro Bay to have a late lunch at Tognazzini’s Dockside Restaurant and then on to Morro Strand for the final activation. Cristy enjoyed a walk on the beach while I did my nerdy ham radio stuff. On this beach we discover tons of a jellyfish-like creature called a “By-the-wind-sailor” or Vallela vallela.
Wednesday belonged to Cristy. We slept in and I made scrambled eggs for Cristy’s breakfast. She wanted us to drive down to San Luis Obispo so she could spend some time doing indoor hunting (shopping). We stopped off for coffee at Scout Coffee Company, arguably the BEST coffee we’ve ever had. So good we bought Angela a bag of their Ethiopian blend. After coffee Cristy perused the stores while I read the news on my phone. We had lunch at a “nothing to write home about” Mexican place there in SLO. It was very “fast-foody” and the fish tacos were only okay. After lunch Cristy had pretty much seen everything she wanted to see so we decided to head back to Cuyucos since we really liked the laid back beach there. It must have been what Avila Beach was like about 30 years ago. We had dinner at Duckie’s Chowder House in Cayucos. At least it was better than the place in SLO. But being before the season really opens, they just didn’t seem to have their hearts in it. We wanted to watch the sunset on the beach, however, the fog started rolling in. I could see it was coming from the south so we drove north back towards Cambria. We had to drive up to San Simeon which is only a few miles north of Cambria before we finally beat the fog. We found a beach access road just next to some hotels and pulled in to watch the sunset.
Overall we really enjoyed our trip to Paso Robles and the coast. However, one thing I should mention. Calfiornia had just had several days of high winds. When we got to Paso Robles our allergies started kicking in from all the grass pollen that was being blown off the hills into town. We couldn’t wait to get to Cambria and SLO to get away from the pollen but our allergies were just as bad on the coast! The ONLY place we got relief from our allergies was when we were standing on the beach. Not near the beach, not in the parking lot, ON the beach. That all being said we loved it there and it was a great way to celebrate Cristy’s birthday!
Air Prayer 