Today, we left the campground at San Benito, one of our least favorite Thousand Trails parks. Yesterday’s torrid temperatures were forecast again today so we jumped up pretty early and were out of the park by 0930. We figured we would have smooth sailing today because we were driving through a scarcely populated area when compared with the drive we made this last Sunday through the dreaded San Francisco Bay metropolis.
We were wrong. No sooner had we turned off CA-25 onto CA-156 near Hollister when the traffic on the miserable 1 lane road stopped for construction with us immobile in the brilliant sunshine. We were surrounded by almost dead-level agricultural fields, some with tractors whipping up maelstroms of rich, brown dust for everyone’s benefit. All told, we were delayed about 3/4 of an hour while checking out the bleak landscape and clouds of dirt. When we finally got to the construction, it was plain to see why they were backing up traffic for miles in both directions; they were paving a small apron off the side of the highway – clearly work which couldn’t be performed at night when there is no traffic.
We finally cleared the traffic snag and soon we were on US-101 south again. We shot through San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach, some little towns I can’t remember the names of and Santa Maria before exiting to CA-154 through Los Olivos. We continued on past Lake Cachuma, which is virtually empty due to California’s long-time drought. A large portion of land skirting the lake burned since our last time here and it looks like the firefighters must have been backed right up to the edge of the water during the firestorm. Everything on the southwest side of the road is either a spindly black stick or ash. In order to prevent us from being bored, there was some more delaying construction that stopped traffic, again on a road where there is no way around it. When we got to the scene of the construction, it appeared that the crew was merely delaying traffic, not actually working. Only the idiots with the stop/slow signs were active – everyone else seemed to be chatting. No tools or equipment in motion could be detected. Not far beyond the Lake, we turned off on Paradise Road that roughly follows the Santa Inez River which is dry. Five miles later, we pulled into Rancho Oso Thousand Trails. Rancho Oso is on one side of a long mountain ridge and the city of Santa Barbara is on the other.
We finally got set up despite our almost sloth-like speeds hooking up utilities at 1630, a mere seven hours after embarking on our suspected 4.5 hour transit. Temperatures were high – it was around 97 when we pulled in and stayed pretty toasty right through bedtime. At lights out, we had most of the windows open in the trailer. We will go back outside when the high temperatures abate.
Leaving Paicines, we shot a picture of some of our friends. Click here