Pasadena, here we come!

Sunday, Jan 1…

Gaviota - see 101 turn left and follow the coast.

Back onto 101 thru San Luis Obispo to Pismo Beach, then up into the mountains. After an hour or so we head straight south to Gaviota (pop 70) and turn left onto the longest (21 miles) remaining rural coastline in southern CA. Soon we see signs for Santa Barbara, where my research has told me there’s an excellent ice cream shop. We haven’t, however, done any serious research on the geography of the city itself (it’s way bigger than I thought). We take an exit w/ a sign for CA Welcome Center (where we figure we can get a couple maps), snake through several residential streets and eventually make it to the beach. There's a huge parking lot – I’m thinking this would be a great place to stop - but we keep driving (Greg is focused solely on the Welcome Center), try the north side of 101 where the original SB mission is located (we don’t find that either), and finally swing back onto 101. Neither of us is very happy – Greg wants better signage; I want to enjoy some local stops.

Maybe 20 minutes later we see signs for Oxnard. (Gail & Lorrie – Graham Oddy’s dad used to work here and he’d take his sack lunch to a big rock and eat looking out over the ocean.) We don’t have a sack lunch or sit on a rock, but we do enjoy some yummy “burnt ends” and cole slaw at Famous Dave’s BBQ. (We also find a CA Welcome Center – closed, of course, it’s New Year’s Day.) Back in the MH, we leave the coast and drive due east past lots of LA suburbs. Skipping the Pasadena exits (we’ll use those tomorrow), we finally greet the security guard at East Shore RV Park (on the shore of Puddingstone Lake). We have 3 nights booked and end up staying a week. It’s a great spot, Greg still has “proper” repairs to make (we can’t trust that Sharpie forever, and 2 other wires have to replaced and re-attached to the harness), and we also need some time to recover from a fairly intense week and make some specific plans for the next portion of the journey.

first evening at San Dimas

BlogThoughts…. Months ago, when we first started taking this trip seriously, I stumbled on a website called California Through My Lens. This fellow (a photographer) has traveled the coast several times and offers engaging commentary on the specific delights of each little town – butterflies in Monterey, ice cream in Santa Barbara…  I was looking forward to all these fun little stops, and we have done none of them.  Lots of understandable reasons why, but – esp after the Santa Barbara mess-up today – I was wallowing in personal grumpiness. RV travel has a lot of advantages, but you can’t just swing in wherever you want. And, if you have a set schedule (as we did for the first week), you don’t have time to continually unhitch and re-attach the toad (towed vehicle). Last night I asked if, after we’ve finished this grand adventure and sold the MH, maybe we could re-do the CA coast by car. (I think he said yes.)