Our neighbor here at Rancho Oso Thousand Trails is a nice guy named Rolf who stops by once in a while for short chats. Weirdly, his second wife also lives here in the park, but two tiers up the hill in a different trailer. Rolf says they are good friends but can’t live together so a couple days back Wife #2 loaded up her stuff and took off for the Las Vegas area to be near her kids. Rolf is not a Vegas fan so he held on here. When we were chatting with him the other day, he suggested a restaurant called Lure’s in Santa Barbara.
Today we hopped into Charlotte and took off on a trip to Lure’s for lunch. There is construction near the State Street address for the restaurant so traffic was formidable, especially coupled with an abundance of impatient rich people barging into traffic with their expensive cars, old people hesitating just enough to stop everyone’s progress and traffic signals that only go green when the intersection is clogged with cars pointing in all directions.
After only two blocks, we were able to get off State and pull into the giant plaza where Lure’s stands. It is an impressive-looking place with almost Italian styling on the outside. It is attractive inside, too, and there are a variety of seating options – raised tables with bar stools, big easy chairs, a long counter, outside seating and many wide-screen TVs that have the closed captioning turned on. The really good part about Lure’s was the seafood. Their chowders were fabulous. I had New England style and is was absolutely the best I have ever been served. Very creamy with tons of clams and hardly any filler (celery). Peggy tried the Veracruz style chowder, very little of which I stole, and we were both impressed with it, too. Again, heavy on the clams which has not been the case in most of the seafood restaurant chowders we have had on this passage down the Pacific coast.
I had fish and shrimp served with fries and a terrific pineapple slaw. Peggy toughed it out with fish and chips and the same slaw and our food was great. They also served us some pretty good beer. Our bill, including chowder, drinks and tip was about $65.
On the way back over the pass we pulled off to drive down Stagecoach Road, past the Cold Creek Tavern and under the Cold Creek Arch Bridge. The weather was nice, there are birds everywhere and the scenery was great. We spotted some more turkeys on the way home. I like turkeys. Maybe they are relatives.
See pix. Click here

Stagecoach Road is a skinny mountain road that wanders on both sides of CA-154 not far from our campground. The curvy but quite scenic blacktop passes underneath and beside the Cold Creek Bridge which was quite an engineering landmark back in the early 1960s, when it was built. My grandfather used to come up to Stagecoach Road every week during construction and shoot off a few frames with his Super-8 movie camera. At the end of construction, he had a neat, stop-action movie of the construction and about the only thing that was wrong with it was the weather and the sun angles changed on days he shot film making the lighting strange.
Along the road under the bridge, in a shady canyon with little parking space, is the Cold Creek Tavern. Before even I was born, the stage from Santa Barbara to points north use to pass over this road, stopping at the Tavern to feed passengers and change horses. The hills are steep here; horses probably didn’t have a long range in this terrain.. It is a challenging road with a motor vehicle. Driving a wooden box pulled by horses or, even worse, riding in a stage over this route must have required considerable intestinal fortitude. Abrupt dropoffs to deep canyons run alongside the lumpy paving.
We followed the road up to the top of the pass where we turned back north toward our RV park, stopping at the Santa Ynez Valley overlook. It is a great, wide view of the scenery from here. As we approached our campground, we came across about 30 turkeys engaged in their scratch-back up-and-look-for-goodies feeding behaviors. They were sporting some extraordinarily colorful plumage and Peggy and I found a superb birdwatching spot very close to the large birds and lingered for quite a while. Peggy and I both admire turkeys but I feel their heads look pretty puny next to their large bodies, particularly when males are trying to show off by puffing themselves up and making lots of their feathers fan out. The females make little funny noises that sound like Butters, from South Park, singing. It’s nice.
We got some pictures of our favorite birds. Click here

Our task for ourselves today was to attempt to see some of the Pacific coast between Santa Maria and Santa Barbara. This sounds much easier than it is.
Our journey started with a westward drive down the quite dry Santa Ynez River from our camp spot at Rancho Oso. For the first time in more than a month, we spotted fog between us and the ocean. There was no miserably hot weather here today. It was very nice for me but Peggy runs somewhat colder and she was in long pants and a coat.
Part way down the River, we passed Lake Cachuma (actually, a reservoir) and continued northwest to a small town called Los Alamos where we turned off on CA-135. It was our intent to eventually hook up with CA-1 but it seems there is no exit for CA-1 from CA-135 if headed north. We had passed it by a considerable margin before your narrator and navigator figured it out and we probably went another 5 miles on the beautiful four-lane highway before being given the opportunity to turn around in Orcutt.
Backtracking, we found an exit to CA-1 and followed it into the Vandenburg Air Force Base where we were about as welcome as turds in the pool. There were no roads to the coast that we could take across the Air Base. We skirted Vandenburg going south until we got to Lompoc, famous for being the locale where all of Nixon’s indicted and convicted co-conspirators spent time at the Federal Penal Country Club and Golf Course and also to having what may be the world’s largest deposit of diatomaceous earth. DE is a big player in the swimming pool filter market.
In Lompoc we found a road that ran toward the coast. The road runs along the southern bank of the Santa Ynez River but, since the Santa Ynez has no water in it, the part near the ocean is a large tidal marsh. At the current flow rate, not a drop makes it to the sea but once it starts raining, if ever, I imagine the low sand berm between the river and the marsh will be blown right out of the way and things will be back to formerly normal. There is a little county park near the ocean called, strangely, Ocean Park. We fetched up in the bird watching platform and spotted a myriad of species, all of the visible ones eating.
After a stroll at the park, we tried going south but immediately ran into some more Vandenburg but when we pulled off to turn around, we discovered what has got to be the world’s loneliest Amtrak station. There were three people fooling around on the tracks but they couldn’t have been waiting for the train because we had just seen it go by from Ocean Park about 30 minutes earlier. The train tracks go across Vandenburg but the trains do not stop inside the base. I rode this stretch on a train from San Diego to Eugene a few years ago and the scenery was wonderful. Motorists need not concern themselves with this spectacular coastal scenery because there aren’t any roads unauthorized persons can access.
Undaunted, we drove back into Lompoc and headed south toward Gaviota on CA-1. About halfway between towns, we found a side road going toward a place called Jalama, 14 miles distant on the coast. The road is curvy and does a lot of up and down but the scenery is pretty good. It seems we were passing through the Jalama Ranch which must be a big honker because, other than a 25 acre Santa Barbara County campground, we never left the ranch property. Jalama campground has about 60 spaces but it is dry camping with the exception of a dozen or so spaces with 30 amp power. It is right on the ocean and, if we had a much smaller and lighter trailer, we would be delighted to spend a few days there. The difficult access road keeps tourists to a minimum.
We left Jalama and drove the 14 miles back to CA-1 where we continued south, hooked up with 101 and returned to our campground. We have done almost the same drive when it was raining and the country reminded me of Scotland or Ireland, two places I have only seen in pictures. It was emerald green. This time, we passed through at the end of a long, hot summer but the scenery is still amazing despite the grass all being yellow now.
There’s pix. Click here

The last few days have been unproductive for us. We are not worried.
The day after we arrived, it was about a gazillion degrees (actually 102F) so we did nothing except replenish our onboard propane supply at the campground store. Propane there is more expensive but it is sold by surly employees that enhance your camping experience.
The next day we gave exploration a try. Again, daytime temperatures hovered around 95. We took a very nice spin up the Santa Ynez River to a place incorrectly named Red Rocks. It is very nice country but we did not spot any rocks that were red. The sometimes one-lane road passes through stunning countryside but the river is as dry as could be. Once we got to the end of the road, we turned back downriver and headed toward Santa Ynez which is Spanish for terrible traffic. We soldiered on but soon we entered the outskirts of Solvang, a municipality where lots of buildings follow an architectural style intended to make tourists think they are in a Danish village despite being in rolling hills with grass range land and oak forest. No snow. No conifers. No Danes. Many expensive shops. We had not even made it to the touristy part before we chickened out, realizing we had scant interest in getting out of our air conditioned vehicle and we headed back toward home. We hope the temps go down soon. It is hot.
Yesterday we knuckled down and drove over the mountain and into Santa Barbara. We went to both Costco and Trader Joe’s stocking up our trailer’s cabinets and fridge such that we appear to be affluent. It was very warm again yesterday and we were fortunate that Peggy forced me to shop in the morning. After a few hours of spending, we pointed Charlotte toward our campground in the Santa Ynez Valley and turned on the A/C.
Today we were on our way out of the campground when we noted some strange sounds emanating from beneath our truck. We cancelled today’s chock-full agenda of fooling around and took the truck back to our campsite. It was still quite toasty today but there was no way to get the truck into the shade. After climbing around like bats beneath the truck, we found where the mechanic in Coos Bay at Tower Ford had made some profound omissions from procedure when installing the expensive DPF (diesel particulate filter or decidedly pricey fucker) some three weeks ago. His exhaust system configuration, as reinstalled, left us with two parts; the front expensive part and the back, slightly less expensive but completely unused part. The front part has merely made the outside of the back part black.
We made quick, hit-and-run guerilla attacks on the system, starting with panic (Let’s call the Ford dealership on Saturday, when they are closed), transitioning into more realistic assessments (Squeeze your rotund, flabby body further under the truck so you can see that of which you know nothing but from where escape is impossible for spherical beings) and finally approaching it when suitably primed with marijuana and alcohol. The final conclusion was that we actually fixed the problem although it took considerable loud, pikey tool hammering by Peggy to drive the errant exhaust system back into the proper place. We won but were quite filthy by the end of it because we are camping and the shop floor is dirt. Fire off the water heater, dearie!

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

We had scheduled today as a rest day and that’s about it. We did little other than make some preparations for travel tomorrow. We are dull sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.
We are set up under an impressive oak tree. It offers superb shade but also drops 50 caliber bullet-sized and -shaped acorns on our roof, making a sound that keeps both of us alert. There are lots of very tubby quail in the campground. They are amusing to watch because they only exhibit three behaviors; bobbing their tasseled head while eating, running somewhere but never where their kin have run and, rarely, short flights. They have a firm strategy about survival – everybody hang together until the first guy chickens out and then all bets are off. Their feathered headgear is amazing.

It was time to continue the trek south down the west side of the U.S. so we put our stuff into travel mode and split from Cloverdale. We actually got out of the Russian River TT Campground before 10:30, which is extremely early for us. We are not early risers.
We got back on US-101 near Cloverdale and headed south. There was some rain a couple of days ago which gave the firefighters toiling to extinguish Crispy California’s hellish assortment of wildfires a break. Near Santa Rosa, we could see where they had held their ground when we passed through some burned and extinguished areas on both sides of the road. It was pretty evident where the firefighters had made stands – there are buildings, underbrush, bushes and trees where they were successful and flat, scorched ground covered with beige and gray ash and masonry chimneys where they weren’t. The city has reported 5700 destroyed structures.
We headed into increasingly heavy traffic as we approached San Rafael but we veered off onto US-580, over the Richmond Bridge and, alakazam!, we were on the other side of San Francisco Bay. We had figured that traffic was going to be light because today is Sunday. It would seem our reasoning, which was based on supposition, conjecture and speculation, was suspect because the traffic was atrocious. It was so heavy, in fact, that it was stopped. We thought we could zing down the east side of the Bay, missing the RV driving nightmare that is San Francisco. We merely found a nightmare elsewhere. Our clever plans were in tatters.
After a loss of only 2 years of my longevity and a half dozen scary panic stops to avoid driving hooligans, we emerged near San Jose where we got back on US-101 southbound. We must have been going the right direction because we noted the northbound traffic was stopped and backed up all the way to Hollister. Right about time the traffic got better, we bailed from US-101 onto CA-25. We skirted Hollister and meandered along, eventually passing through a small clump of buildings called Tres Pinos. Continuing, we soon passed through an even smaller clump of buildings called Paicines. Not too much further along we turned off on some farm roads ultimately pulling into the San Benito TT facility. We were here back in 2014 and were not dazzled with the place.
We pulled into the park and found some changes. The roads are better. The electrical system functions, which is much better than in 2014 when I needed to run our generators to supply power. The place looks much better. Both adult and family pools are open which wasn’t the case in ’14. There are big scrums of softball-sized quail charging in all directions. We actually got a spot with full hookups and shade. Last time we just had the shade. It seems better, now. The sewer system works but they have signs warning that RV enzyme compounds typically used in RVs can’t go into their system. It’s strange that biological organisms that eat poop are worse than poop but I’m no chemist.
We must have become substantially more wimpy as we age because it seems that a six hour drive we used to make in 2014 was much easier than the same drive now. It was a long day for us geezers so we set up our trailer and hopped inside for the rest of the day. One or more of us may have napped a bit.
We got a picture of a campground buddy. Click here

Today was our last full day in the Cloverdale area. Cloverdale is nice. At the north end of town the main drag is lined with sculptures, there are dozens of gorgeous old houses, the landscaping is pretty and the roads are okay. When there hasn’t been fire upwind, the air quality has been great. Their laundromat has great dryers. We had good food at the Hamburger Ranch. The weather has been nice. There are many handsome and colorful birds living near our trailer.
Our drive a few days ago from Healdburg to Stewarts Point had magnificent scenery but the road is challenging. I don’t recollect previously driving down a road with more twisting, turning, climbing, descending, and creeping around blind, sharp corners. We were lucky because we had two drivers and we each drove one way. Riding shotgun was better. It is beautiful country.
We fueled the truck, unhooked most of the utilities from the trailer and prepped for departure. Tomorrow we continue our trek southward. We hope to get through the San Francisco Bay Area without mind-numbing delays as we shoot for San Benito TT near Hollister.
See today’s Cloverdale shots. Click here
Due to a complete lack of talent on the part of the operator, today’s pictures may have some repeats from the 18th.

The rain beat out some nifty tattoos on our fiberglass home last night. We hope the rain that passed over made it to the firefighters a few miles away. They could use a break; this has been a nasty year for fire in Northern California.
We waited until it dried out this morning but we finally emerged from the Invader to watch the woodpeckers and titmice (titmouses?) at our feeder, take strolls and go to the local Ray’s grocery store to restock our shelves. I would suggest that anybody coming to the Cloverdale area bring their own food because grocery shopping here is pricey and Ray’s may be the worst.

It was laundry day today and, since our current campground only has one operating washer, we headed into Cloverdale to find better facilities. We drove into town on back roads and, strangely, ended up surfacing in town about 100 feet from our target destination. It would have been better to drive all the way down Cloverdale’s main drag because the beautifully landscaped road has a revolving display of sculptures about every 100 feet apart on both sides of the street.
The laundry was much less interesting than the sculptures but we finished it anyway and headed back home. Peggy said she felt a bit nasty so we climbed back into our trailer just before today’s rain started. I sure hope the rain gives the firefighters around here a break. They need one.