We departed from Rancho Oso TT sort of reluctantly today. We had some great times exploring the Santa Barbara/Buellton/Solvang/Los Olivos/Santa Ynez Valley on this pass through the area. The recent rains made the scenery bright green except where there is exposed rock and even it had interesting strata. Santa Barbara has a fair maritime museum and the downtown architecture is gorgeous but the traffic is absolutely horrible.
Our drives in the Santa Ynez Valley yielded great panoramas and ample wildlife. Solvang is a nice, touristy little town with good bakeries and even Lompoc had its charms albeit small ones. Just the same, we loaded up our stuff and checked out of Rancho Oso TT and drove west to CA-154 where we turned north to US-101. We continued north on 101 through Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo where there is an enormous steep climb north of town. I think we were doing about 35 mph at the top. We continued on to Paso Robles where we pulled into an RV park called “The Vines” although I couldn’t see a single vine from any side of our trailer. The park has concrete pads for parking your RV, full hookups, a hot tub, wi-fi, pools, very nice buildings and even a bar. It also has about 30 feet separating the park from 101 so highway noise is quite evident. The prices for a nightly RV space are pretty steep for a pull-thru spot in the midst of a large parking lot-like setting. The landscaping is well maintained but trees and shade are scarce. Behind the park is a long warehouse with spiffy sheet metal siding and three metal tanks in the yard.
We set up quickly and popped into the trailer for lunch. Soon we noted we could hear some noise similar to music but not really music. We couldn’t pinpoint the source of the racket so we just closed the trailer door which had been left open to take advantage of the gorgeous weather. Even with the door closed, the horrible noises were still audible. After a few minutes of annoying din from outside, I went outside to see if I could figure out where the noise was originating. Shazam! Our neighbor with an enormous mobile apartment block called a Fleetwood Revolution RV had one of the cargo doors open. That cargo door covered a very nice stereo equipment array being used to amplify some horrible country western music such that those driving by on the freeway could hate him, too. I approached the neighbor who was taking it easy in a folding chair on the far side of his machine. I was very nice despite my longing to ventilate his speakers with pistol bullets. I pledged to myself not to ridicule his music (it was difficult) while nicely asking him if he couldn’t tone it down a bit. He was quite nice about it and turned it down to where I can only hear it as low background noise instead of pervasive, mind-numbing twanging. Normally, I find some country music quite good but the selections made by my neighbor must not be the types I like.