Hanging in Orange County

Having returned for Alan's knee surgery, we'll be hanging around Orange County until October 1st.  Alan has a follow-up appointment on Thursday the 29th which, hopefully, will clear him to make my birthday dinner on Friday.  Ahem, I mean take off on our adventure for real on October 1st.


Alan is doing very well, all bandaged up with terriers laying all over him.  My thanks to Delores again for watching The Noses during the surgery (and for the delicious organic tomatoes, squash and oatmeal cookies!)  I don't think The Noses wanted to come back with us -- especially River who (apparently) ran around like mad, stretching her long legs out, inside and outside of Delores' lovely home.


I am enjoying lots of tennis and long dog walks.  We started at Doheny State Park which was crowded, dirty and noisy, but fit our budget at $35/night.  We have moved to Newport Dunes RV Park so we can have electric hook ups to amuse Alan with the T.V.  (With our solar, we can only watch about one hour of T.V. per day, which is usually one hour too much.  But the poor guy can hardly walk around right now.)


Newport Dunes is nice and quite a good deal at $55/night including hook-ups.  But beware of the weekends:  People come here to party.  There is a lovely bike/walking path the winds through the bay and marina and a large, clean, swimming pool which I hope to hit if we ever see some sunshine.


Thank you all for the well-wishes for Alan.  I am sure he'll be up and hiking again soon!


-K

Morro Bay, CA, USA - Sept 16 & 17, 2011

More Pictures!

On recommendation from our former neighbors (whom I have had the pleasure of meeting twice, but still cannot recall their names, I just call them Friends of Jim and Gary—sorry guys, I know you might be reading this!) we left our dispersed campsite in the Sequoia National Forest and headed down to Montana del Oro just outside of Morro Bay, CA.  (Highway 180 to 41 to 1.)

As promised, Montana del Oro was spread over the bluffs with some of the most beckoning hiking trails I have ever come across:  Out to the ocean dunes, up into the hills, along the high, rocky cliffs.  But sadly, the hikes all started with a No Dogs Allowed sign.   

Being tired after our long drive, we took a spot in the campground despite having no hiking options and went for a short walk.  When we returned, while pondering the amount of dirt and stickers the dogs were collecting tied up outside, I said to Alan, “Don’t be mad:  I want to leave.”  You see, I desperately wanted a shower and we were low on water.  I’d have to haul the six gallons from the pump house to Salt and that just made me sad.  The thought of full hook ups at the State Park were driving me crazy with desire.  So we hitched back up and headed to the State Park.

By this time it is close to 5:00 p.m.  We thought we would get there just in time for the sun downers and for Alan to watch me scurry off to the showers.  

We were unwelcomed at the State Park with the dreaded “Campground Full” sign at the entrance.  Having no choice, we drove up to the window anyway just to confirm.  (We have read a lot of personal antidotes that revealed the parks aren’t always as full as the signs indicate.)  We enquire.  They are indeed full.  But the nice ranger says, “But wait!  This is your lucky day – it is 5:05 p.m. and I can release the ADA (Americans with Disability Act) spots for sale to regular people.”   (I offered, “And Alan has a cane!” which was not appreciated by either human in my vicinity.  Alan later corrected me, “It is a walking stick.”)  Have I said how lucky we are?  Heavenly full hook ups, a nice long hot shower and a sun-downer.  And I have never been so happy to see asphalt—the dogs were laying off dirt!  All this was topped off with Alan cooking up some bacon to make BLT’s with those fantastic tomatoes from the farmer’s stand.

So . . . two nights at the Morro State Park and we were ready to hit the road.  The next stop turned out to be Santa Barbara for the afore-blogged “Our First Non-Emotional Breakdown.”

The next three weeks will be in and around Laguna due to Alan’s knee surgery.  Postings might be scarce, or even more one-sided than normal.  Hey, Alan will be drugged most of the time!

-K

PS:  You think you have scaled down your life until you are walking away from your car and trailer with only your back-pack, truly homeless for the first time.  

Our First (Non-Emotional) Breakdown

Our first break-down!  This entry will be a little out of sequence on the timeline as I haven't reported on Morro Bay yet, but I think this is slightly more interesting at the moment.


Driving from Morro Bay to Dana Point today (one of my favorite drives ever, along Highway 101), the Pepper started to shake a little on the highway.  I was driving and thought it might be the road at first so I kept on for a mile or so, but then it started to feel like a flat tire and so we pulled off and into a nice, large, Ratheon parking lot just outside of Santa Barbara.  


The tires checked out ok, but Alan noticed that the weight distribution hitch was loose on one side.  We hoisted Salt off of Pepper, and Alan went to work tightening the hitch while I walked the Noses.  All tightened up, we jumped back in (spent a good 15 minutes trying to get out of the parking lot where I had tried to take too sharp a turn and Salt's wheels kept hitting the curb but really that turned out to be the least of our issues) and re-hit the highway.  


We were back on the Highway for about a mile when the feeling came back.  It's like the Pepper can't breathe, maybe a fuel pump issue?  Anyway, we take another exit and find ourselves on a tiny road in Santa Barbara on which I am determined to spend as little time as possible:  I have driven through Santa Barbara and as beautiful and quaint as it is in a small car, pulling a trailer would be very daunting on most of it's tiny streets.  


So we do a quick u-turn (this time in less than 15 minutes) and park off to the side.  I then asked my phone to "Navigate to Porsche" and heaven appeared!  A Porsche dealership only about two miles away.  Trouble was, Pepper was getting worse by the second.  On the highway, it was only having trouble at higher speeds and while accelerating, now it was having trouble just starting out at all.  So flashers on, we crept, and I mean crept, to the Porsche dealership.  


We are two of the luckiest  people for sure (more of the luck was used in Morro Bay--the posting still to come) and there was a nice long parking spot available next to the dealership.  Being Sunday, the service department was closed, but David in Sales graciously allowed us to pull Salt into the Service area and leave both there overnight.  (David in Sales also graciously supplied us with water, coffee, soft drinks, drinks for the dogs, and a washroom.  There is something to buying expensive cars!)  


Of course, Alan is thinking we are going to "finally" get the new Cayenne he has wanted since we first starting thinking about this trip.  Is that part of the New Austerity I wonder?  I think it will have a lot to do with what is wrong with Pepper . . . 


In the meantime, we are at the dodgy Hacienda Motel (walking distance from Porsche) in Santa Barbara.  We can each stand in front of our own bed (2!), spread our arms out and not touch anything at all.  Unless we want to.


-K


PS:  And the CFO ruled that this hotel charge isn't going to be charged to our regular hotel budget, but to Pepper maintenance.  I wonder how he will feel about the wine at dinner . . .