The Deer and The Vineyard.
On the hottest day so far this summer we decided to take a short drive south to the little country chic town of Los Alamos to check out some of the antique barns. Off we went south on our street, California Highway One. (Highway One is called Mesa View Drive in our town, and that is our street address...it goes from Capistrano Beach, in Orange County to Leggett, near the Oregon border, over 620 miles north.) As a native Californian I was delighted to have a Highway One address. I digress.
Southbound we passed the goats and tortoises one of our neighbors has fenced next to the road, then went past the llamas, on down the dune-side of Nipomo Mesa, past the oil refinery (we are bracketed by a nuclear power plant north and this refinery south, no wonder SLO county has a siren system...), through the strawberry fields, past the Oso Flaco lake and dunes turnoff (means "skinny bear") and over the Santa Maria River into the Mexican/Anglo/Nisei town of Guadalupe, just across the Santa Barbara County line. By the way, at the entrance to Oso Flaco the ranger hut has warnings about mountain lions, but not bears.
They may call the river after Santa Maria, a small city east of Guadalupe in Santa Barbara County, but the whole thing is in SLO County. My dear Uncle Tom, Mom's brother, spent his last days here in Guadalupe. It has an ancient Japanese-American food emporium, several good Mexican restaurants, and an Amtrack station. I love this little town.
At the southern end of the 25 mph speed-limited main street (Highway One) you can turn left and traverse several miles of vegetable fields to reach the urban delights of Santa Maria (all the major chains are here), or turn right to pass through a few fields and a sand quarry to reach the Guadalupe Dunes and the Pacific Ocean, or continue ahead on Highway One. We went straight, following the railroad tracks until they curved away southwest to the edge of the hills above the ever-busy fields, past the old oil town of Orcutt. Instead of continuing on One through Vandenburg AFB we bore left and followed the 135 toward Los Alamos. More beautiful California scenery, ochre hills, green fields, lush creek beds, now more vineyards, and the ever-present cattle.
On a straight stretch I was watching a big rig slowly catching up to me, and was looking out for a place to pull over for him to pass. I hate being pushed when I want to wander, and I certainly do not want to hold up commerce. Ahead a quarter mile I saw a deer leave a harvested field on the right, cross the thicketed barrow, and then the highway to a vineyard on the left. I cried out to my bride with originality "look a deer", and took my foot off the gas as a buck sauntered across the road. She gasped and yelled "wait wait wait there are more". I suddenly saw two more heads in the thicket heading for the highway. I slammed on the brakes and was glad the big rig was still some distance behind. I hit the air horn and I swear, the doe and older fawn made it across 135 without touching it, they were so incentivized.
This was the closest we have ever come to having venison on the grill, and there were no "deer area" signs anywhere. Scary. I pulled over into a farm drive, waved at the truck driver as he blew by, and pulled a U-turn. We wanted to see more of the deer that just scared us poopless....We retraced our route, scanning the vineyard rows to no avail, did another Ueey and continued on to Los Alamos.
The antique barn was stifling and unremarkable, so after an hour or so we hit the road for the ride home. Thank God for air conditioning. I was much more aware of the deer possibilities this time.
Kayaking In The Cold and Fog.
Yesterday I finally got the boat in the water at Morro Bay. I have been neglecting this activity for weeks, using various excuses, but ran out of them.
It was a beautiful sunny, breezy day on the Mesa, but as we headed out west on Los Osos Valley Road we could see the fogbank on the coast. We found Morro Bay to have intermittant fog and sun so I decided to proceed.
After rigging the kayak I dragged it to the launch ramp, climbed in, and took off north. The ramp is at the south end of the town, north of the State Park and museum. I was taking advantage of an ebbing tide, even though I was fighting the wind. I felt good to stretch my muscles and pull our 285 pounds of combined boat, gear, and man through the cold water.
As I headed up toward the cityfront the sun teased in and out, and when it stayed out for a few minutes, I went to a dock, hung on, and called my bride. She said the sun broke out just after I launched and I told her that was why I called, that I was in a pool of light with fog all around, like the eye of a hurricane. The Rock was doing a striptease with foggy tendrils coming and going. I continued north along the cityfront. For a Friday, the restaurants were sparsely populated, then I remembered it was post-Labor Day.
I stopped again to call my son, a survivor of the great Blackout of 2011, to let him hear the barking sea lions, but it went to voicemail so I left a lengthy annoying message full of unrelated items. Typical.
I said hello to a few fellow boaters and the few tourists braving the chill wind. One old liveaboard guy called out to me from his seen-better-days sailboat: "lookin' good!" and offered me a sweatshirt when I said thanks, I wish it was warmer. I turned him down with a smile. I have no idea what that was all about, maybe it was my bright red San Diego Rod & Reel cap, my flowered blue boardshorts, my gray hair, or the 9 inch rescue dagger strapped to my right calf.
Once I was in sight of the Coast Guard pier, the fog was back and the tide had turned, so I did likewise. The return voyage had the double benefit of surfing upriver on the flood and being pushed by the wind. I got back a lot faster than I left.
I did the derigging, loaded the boat on the truck, and this time, thanked God for the heater.
Thunder and Lightning and Rain Oh My
We hit the sack with the world enveloped in fog last night. Still sore from my paddle, I moved to the guest room futon at 5 am so as to not disturb my bride with my tossing and turning. Ten minutes later all hell broke loose in the form of lightning, thunder, and heavy rain. Funny thing, earlier in the evening I told her my weather station was predicting rain and we both laughed. It was marvelous, although I had mixed emotions: last week I cut a 4 inch hole in the roof of my perfectly good wooden shed to install a vent. I had yet to finish the flashing and sealing when this deluge hit. By this time my bride was up, looking at the lightning, and looking for me, she says. The show ended and I joined her in our room. This time I slept better, even as I dreamt of a stream of water going into my shed. Guess what I did first thing this morning. Yeehaa, the shed was dry. Such drama.
On the hottest day so far this summer we decided to take a short drive south to the little country chic town of Los Alamos to check out some of the antique barns. Off we went south on our street, California Highway One. (Highway One is called Mesa View Drive in our town, and that is our street address...it goes from Capistrano Beach, in Orange County to Leggett, near the Oregon border, over 620 miles north.) As a native Californian I was delighted to have a Highway One address. I digress.
Southbound we passed the goats and tortoises one of our neighbors has fenced next to the road, then went past the llamas, on down the dune-side of Nipomo Mesa, past the oil refinery (we are bracketed by a nuclear power plant north and this refinery south, no wonder SLO county has a siren system...), through the strawberry fields, past the Oso Flaco lake and dunes turnoff (means "skinny bear") and over the Santa Maria River into the Mexican/Anglo/Nisei town of Guadalupe, just across the Santa Barbara County line. By the way, at the entrance to Oso Flaco the ranger hut has warnings about mountain lions, but not bears.
They may call the river after Santa Maria, a small city east of Guadalupe in Santa Barbara County, but the whole thing is in SLO County. My dear Uncle Tom, Mom's brother, spent his last days here in Guadalupe. It has an ancient Japanese-American food emporium, several good Mexican restaurants, and an Amtrack station. I love this little town.
At the southern end of the 25 mph speed-limited main street (Highway One) you can turn left and traverse several miles of vegetable fields to reach the urban delights of Santa Maria (all the major chains are here), or turn right to pass through a few fields and a sand quarry to reach the Guadalupe Dunes and the Pacific Ocean, or continue ahead on Highway One. We went straight, following the railroad tracks until they curved away southwest to the edge of the hills above the ever-busy fields, past the old oil town of Orcutt. Instead of continuing on One through Vandenburg AFB we bore left and followed the 135 toward Los Alamos. More beautiful California scenery, ochre hills, green fields, lush creek beds, now more vineyards, and the ever-present cattle.
On a straight stretch I was watching a big rig slowly catching up to me, and was looking out for a place to pull over for him to pass. I hate being pushed when I want to wander, and I certainly do not want to hold up commerce. Ahead a quarter mile I saw a deer leave a harvested field on the right, cross the thicketed barrow, and then the highway to a vineyard on the left. I cried out to my bride with originality "look a deer", and took my foot off the gas as a buck sauntered across the road. She gasped and yelled "wait wait wait there are more". I suddenly saw two more heads in the thicket heading for the highway. I slammed on the brakes and was glad the big rig was still some distance behind. I hit the air horn and I swear, the doe and older fawn made it across 135 without touching it, they were so incentivized.
This was the closest we have ever come to having venison on the grill, and there were no "deer area" signs anywhere. Scary. I pulled over into a farm drive, waved at the truck driver as he blew by, and pulled a U-turn. We wanted to see more of the deer that just scared us poopless....We retraced our route, scanning the vineyard rows to no avail, did another Ueey and continued on to Los Alamos.
The antique barn was stifling and unremarkable, so after an hour or so we hit the road for the ride home. Thank God for air conditioning. I was much more aware of the deer possibilities this time.
Kayaking In The Cold and Fog.
Yesterday I finally got the boat in the water at Morro Bay. I have been neglecting this activity for weeks, using various excuses, but ran out of them.
It was a beautiful sunny, breezy day on the Mesa, but as we headed out west on Los Osos Valley Road we could see the fogbank on the coast. We found Morro Bay to have intermittant fog and sun so I decided to proceed.
After rigging the kayak I dragged it to the launch ramp, climbed in, and took off north. The ramp is at the south end of the town, north of the State Park and museum. I was taking advantage of an ebbing tide, even though I was fighting the wind. I felt good to stretch my muscles and pull our 285 pounds of combined boat, gear, and man through the cold water.
As I headed up toward the cityfront the sun teased in and out, and when it stayed out for a few minutes, I went to a dock, hung on, and called my bride. She said the sun broke out just after I launched and I told her that was why I called, that I was in a pool of light with fog all around, like the eye of a hurricane. The Rock was doing a striptease with foggy tendrils coming and going. I continued north along the cityfront. For a Friday, the restaurants were sparsely populated, then I remembered it was post-Labor Day.
I stopped again to call my son, a survivor of the great Blackout of 2011, to let him hear the barking sea lions, but it went to voicemail so I left a lengthy annoying message full of unrelated items. Typical.
I said hello to a few fellow boaters and the few tourists braving the chill wind. One old liveaboard guy called out to me from his seen-better-days sailboat: "lookin' good!" and offered me a sweatshirt when I said thanks, I wish it was warmer. I turned him down with a smile. I have no idea what that was all about, maybe it was my bright red San Diego Rod & Reel cap, my flowered blue boardshorts, my gray hair, or the 9 inch rescue dagger strapped to my right calf.
Once I was in sight of the Coast Guard pier, the fog was back and the tide had turned, so I did likewise. The return voyage had the double benefit of surfing upriver on the flood and being pushed by the wind. I got back a lot faster than I left.
I did the derigging, loaded the boat on the truck, and this time, thanked God for the heater.
Thunder and Lightning and Rain Oh My
We hit the sack with the world enveloped in fog last night. Still sore from my paddle, I moved to the guest room futon at 5 am so as to not disturb my bride with my tossing and turning. Ten minutes later all hell broke loose in the form of lightning, thunder, and heavy rain. Funny thing, earlier in the evening I told her my weather station was predicting rain and we both laughed. It was marvelous, although I had mixed emotions: last week I cut a 4 inch hole in the roof of my perfectly good wooden shed to install a vent. I had yet to finish the flashing and sealing when this deluge hit. By this time my bride was up, looking at the lightning, and looking for me, she says. The show ended and I joined her in our room. This time I slept better, even as I dreamt of a stream of water going into my shed. Guess what I did first thing this morning. Yeehaa, the shed was dry. Such drama.
Comments
Post a Comment