Oso Flaco Lake and the Dunes

After a refreshing overnight rain, the sky was still a bit overcast this afternoon as Dave and I drove about 20 minutes south of Pismo Beach on Highway 1 to Oso Flaco Lake, northwest of the small town of Guadalupe. 

This is part of the state park system, so we paid the senior day use fee of $4 to park.  The first part of the nature trail was an ordinary trail through a riparian area  containing creekside vegetation. 

Then comes the interesting park--a bridge walkway over the lake.  I forgot to take a picture of the bridge over the (non-troubled) water because I was so busy taking pictures of the lake itself.

I am sorry to report that dogs are not allowed on this trail, but it's a good place for strollers and wheelchairs and people like us who don't like to walk on water or in sand!

After crossing the lake, the bridge turned into a boardwalk through the coastal dune scrub area.

A panoramic view of the end of the boardwalk amid the dunes.

And, finally, our reward, a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean!

I'll share just a few bits of cultural history that I found interesting about this area:

1.  Chumash Indians resided in the area, making their huts out of the willow branches, covered with tule reeds.

2.  In 1769, Spanish explorer Portola landed in the area.  While hunting for meat, his men shot a bear at a fresh water lake and named the lake, "Oso Flaco" which means "Skinny Bear".

3.  In 1923, the film "The Ten Commandments" was filmed on the dunes. 

4.  From the 1930s to the 1980s, The Dunites, a group of artists, mystics, and hermits resided in the dunes. 

Elephant Seal Viewing Area

Dave and I have been in Pismo Beach for a week.  Today we decided to take a drive north up Highway 1 along the coast.  We went by the exit for Hearst Castle, but didn't visit this time since we had been there before.  The road is a long way from the castle, but I was able to get a decent, if somewhat blurry, shot from afar.

Hearst Castle

We didn't know exactly where the Elephant Seal Viewing Area was located, but as we drove a few miles north of San Simeon and Hearst Castle, we saw that it was clearly marked along Highway 1 and that there were lots of cars and people there.

This time of the year, elephant seals come here to mate and birth their young.  They don't bark like sea lions, but they make all kinds of other noises, mostly sounding (to me) like a bunch of cattle.

Elephant seals on the beach--no, they're not dead.

The one on the bottom left is loudly complaining!

This is a happy family (I think).

Most of the elephant seals were playing dead on the sand, but I caught these two frolicking in the water.

Besides seeing the elephant seals on the beach, the view of the Pacific Ocean's rocky coastline was spectacular here.

North of the elephant seal viewing area a working lighthouse was visible.  Of course we had to drive a few more miles up the coast to visit it.  

Piedras Blancas Lighthouse

The lighthouse wasn't open today, but can be viewed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.  Do not, however, go to the lighthouse for the tour.  It's a guided tour that meets at 9:45 am at a motel one and a half miles north of the lighthouse. 

Viewing the huge elephant seals was the highlight of our day trip today.  The male seals grow to 5000 pounds and the females reach 1500 pounds.  The adult males arrive in early December after a journey from Alaska.   The pregnant females also begin arriving in December and each one selects a comfortable location to give birth.   Eventually each male will have as many as 40 females in his harem.

The first pups are usually born around December 20 and births continue through January.  By March, the next mating season, which begins about a month after the births, is over and the adult seals head out to the ocean leaving the weaned pups to teach themselves how to swim.

Butterflies and More

I am happy to report that after a full day of taking Vicodin, for a total of four pills, my hand and wrist are back to normal.  I am SO happy not to have any more pain!

Today's walk was intended to be to the Monarch butterfly migration area just south of Pismo Coast Village RV Park.  We started out on the sidewalk along Highway 1.  When the sidewalk ended, we walked through Pismo State Beach Park.

This park is closed for maintenance, but it's a nice non-hookup park right on the beach and right next to the butterfly area.

Camping sites

We saw a path that went south, so we took it.  It went up to the butterfly area, but it also went west toward the ocean.  We skipped the butterflies for now and went on to the beach.  We ended up at a long boardwalk area which had views of both the beach and the state park golf course.

Ocean view from the boardwalk

Looking back toward town  Golf course and wedding tent

Golf course

We walked all the way to the golf course along this boardwalk path, 2.6 miles.   We still had to walk back to the RV park, so we decided to walk back along the highway, and we visited the butterflies on our way back.

A butterfly lesson

The butterflies are hard to take pictures of

Eucalyptus trees

Our walk today turned out to be 4.1 miles.  That's the most we've walked at one time since we have been here. 

Urgent Care

Tuesday morning I tried to lift the recliner chair to straighten a rug that was underneath.  My right hand immediately was painful.  I have carpal tunnel in both my hands and wrists and I wear braces at night to keep from damaging them.  I put the brace back on my right hand and it felt better.

Bob Jones Bike Path, Avila Beach

So Dave and I decided to go for a bike ride.  My hand felt okay as long as I kept the brace on.  We rode on Avila Beach's Bob Jones Trail.  We had a nice six-mile ride along this multi-use path.

A bridge near the end of the path.  Ahead of us was a sewage plant which was located next to a golf course.

Avila Beach is a picturesque upscale community.

After the bike ride we drove to Avila Beach's San Luis Bay.  Along the bay, we were stopped by some road work.  Evidently they were fixing a rock slide area, and part of the fix was to cause more rocks to slide down a hill.

The brown area was the slide area.

After we had been back home in the motorhome for  a couple of hours, my hand and wrist started hurting badly.  I can't take ibuprofen because I'm on coumadin (blood thinner) since I have an artificial aortic heart valve.  So I took some Tylenol, but it didn't help the pain at all.  I finally called Dave, who was playing golf at a nearby golf course, to ask him to stop on his way home and get some BenGay salve and some higher strength Tylenol.  He also bought me an ace bandage. 

A couple of more hours went by and my pain seemed to be increasing, not lessening.  Dave walked over to the RV park office and was directed to an urgent care clinic not too far away.  We drove to the clinic and discovered that it closed at 6.  It was now 5:40 pm.  The clinic  people were super nice and took my Kaiser information so that they could bill them.  The doctor confirmed that this was a classic case of carpal tunnel inflammation.  He gave me a prescription for Vicodin, which we had filled at a nearby Walmart. 

I took the first Vicodin last night and within a few minutes, my pain abated somewhat.  I went to bed early last night and woke up at 3:30 am and took another Vicodin.  This morning, the pain was mostly gone.  In fact, I felt so good that we took another walk to town.  We were trying to locate a couple of geocaches, but we didn't find either one.  We did, however, enjoy the sunshine and warm temperature.  I can't ride my bike until this pain goes totally away, so I am happy that I was able to go for a walk.

Another Pismo Beach clam landmark, this one not decorated.

And yes, the urgent care clinic stayed open until I was treated!

Pismo Beach Fishing Pier

On Sunday, we watched the exodus of many of the weekend guests.  Today we saw a few more leave.  But we also saw more people come in on Sunday and Monday.  The park is about as empty as it gets, but it is still over half full. 

South view of the beach from the fishing pier

Pismo Coast Village RV Park stores trailers and fifth wheels for a nominal price, and runs a service where they will tow your trailer from the storage yard and set it up in a site, and then tow it back to the storage yard when you are done camping.  Lots of people seem to use this service because those big tow vehicles were busy all day yesterday and some today. 

The beach view north of the pier

The air channel part of our Air Dream mattress on the sofa bed sprung a leak.  They come with a three year warranty, so we ordered a replacement while we were in Grass Valley and had it shipped to Pismo Coast Village.  The mattress came today.  We learned that we can have our mail forwarded here, too.  Next year we plan to stay for two months, so it will be handy to get our mail instead of having it forwarded to our son and daughter-in-law's house.  

Dave cleaned up some spots on our rugs today and installed a bigger window shade on the driver's side window.  He put the old, smaller shade on the passenger side.  We found two RV parts stores near here, so that is handy, also another Radio Shack, which we always seem to have to visit each trip. 

A view of Pomeroy Street from the pier

After resting up from the maintenance and cleaning, we went for a walk to the pier.  This pier was built in 1881 and was much longer then.  The pier was washed out by a storm in 1983, and was rebuilt a couple of years later.  It's still a popular fishing place.  We watched some surfers and saw one seal.

I was trying to take a picture of the surfers, but I ended up with this picture of  a seagull. 

Yesterday I spent the afternoon exploring while Dave stayed home and watched the two football playoff games.  I explored Shell Beach and part of Avila Beach.  I scouted out several more places to bike ride and to take walks.

Posing at the end of the fishing pier

Pismo Beach Walk

Welcome to new followers, Donna, a fellow Pacific Northwesterner who writes an interesting blog called Travel Therapy, and The Old Geezer, author of a popular blog with thousands of followers.

Our first full day in Pismo Beach has gotten off to a good start with lots of exercise.  Dave and I walked to town this morning and then this afternoon we went on an almost ten mile bike ride to the state beach at Oceano.  I can't take pictures while riding my bike, so it's good to go for a walk, too.  The daytime temperature was in the high sixties, sunny with no wind. 

Pismo Beach

The Pismo Beach pier

The Pismo Clam, which in December was decorated as a reindeer, is now painted as a Monarch butterfly.  Just south of the park is a seasonal butterfly nesting area, from November through February.

A view of town from the walkway along the beach.

Are we in Palm Springs?  No, it's Pismo Beach!

Friday night, our first night in Pismo Beach, Dave and I ate at the funky Splash Cafe.  This place has been around for 70 years, and now it's a fish and chips and chowder place.  I ordered a clam chowder bread bowl and Dave had a hamburger with curly fries.  Our food was good, possibly the best clam chowder that I've ever tasted--thick and yummy and full of clams.

Yes, that's a line out the door at Splash Cafe.  They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  It's a popular place.

We Made it to Pismo Beach!

Yes, that's a palm tree!

Excuse the sun peeking over our motorhome, but we didn't get to Pismo Beach until 3:40, so the sun was already getting low.  I'm not complaining about the sun, because it was great to see the sun.  Pismo Beach has been having some very nice weather and I'm glad we got here before it eventually starts raining again.

We made pretty good time getting here from Grass Valley.  After settling up with DeMartini RV, we left there at 8:40 am.  Again, there was NO CHARGE for any of the things we had repaired during the past two days.  They worked with Fleetwood to see that everything was covered under warranty, even though our warranty technically expired in mid-October, 2010.  We can't recommend DeMartini RV Sales and Service high enough.  Be advised, though, they sell and service motorhomes only.  No trailers or fifth-wheels were in sight. 

We're staying at Pismo Coast Village in site #161 which has our requested amenities of full hookups, 50 amp, free wifi, and satellite signal.  We reserved 28 days in this park, which is the longest that we've stayed anywhere, except at home.  We're going to to try the snowbird life for a month!

After our 5-day visit to Pismo Coast Village RV Park in December, Dave and I decided to become shareholders in the park.  We bought one share a few days before Christmas.  Until Margie and Bruce explained in her blog about being shareholders in this park, we thought this was just a normal RV park.  Margie gave an excellent explanation of how it works, so click here to read what she wrote in September, just a few weeks before she and Bruce were tragically killed.  Of course it's bittersweet to be here, but I think Margie and Bruce would approve of our purchase and our month-long stay.

Margie and Bruce during our visit in Astoria, June, 2010

We bought one share, which entitles us to stay up to 45 days each year.  In addition, some of the prime-time dates can be traded for 2 non-prime time dates.  That's a good deal for us, because we plan to rarely be here during the prime time season, which is all summer and some fall and spring weekends, along with some holidays. 

The best part for us is that this is NOT a timeshare.  It's an ownership share, which is like a share of stock.  We can sell it any time and the shares generally hold their value pretty well.  There are no maintenance fees, no monthly fees, no fees at all.  The upkeep of the park is paid for by the non-shareholder public who stay in half the sites, with the other half of the 500 sites being reserved for shareholders.  It's a popular park right on the beach, and has been here for 35 years. 

Odds and Ends

Welcome to two new sets of blog followers, Kathy and Robert and brand new bloggers, Nancy and Joe.  Click on their names to read their blogs.

Dave and I are sitting at DeMartini in Grass Valley, CA, in our "office" (the conference room).  Inside the building we can use their speedy wifi but we can't get it in the RV parking spot. 

They have put a call into  Fleetwood to authorize further repairs to our motorhome's bedroom slide.  In addition, the windshield wipers are getting a new motor installed. 

I don't have any new pictures, so I've included a few more pictures that I took in Old Sacramento on Sunday and a couple more Yosemite pictures.  You might have noticed that I like to take pictures of signs!

I don't know what the building in the background is, but it was impressive and had a path down to a dock along the Sacramento River.  Delta King is a 1927 riverboat that traveled between Sacramento and San Francisco.  It is now permanently docked at Old Sacramento and is a restaurant and hotel.

Below is a picture of the rockslide on Highway 140 leading to Yosemite.  It happened in mid-summer, 2006 and they haven't figured out a way to fix it yet.  They are thinking about tunneling through it.  In the meantime  there's a temporary detour across the Merced River.

We visited the famous Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite.  We wanted to have lunch there, but we decided not to when we saw that even a sandwich cost over $20.  We were amused to see that the Ahwahnee's outdoor swimming pool was heated and available for their guests to use, even though there was snow on the ground. 

And finally, I have a quote to share with you:

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."

--G. K. Chesterton
    English author & mystery novelist (1874 - 1936)