Motel 6 Paso Robles

... and the servings were more than ample. It was a pleasant way to top off a great day.
The only "whine" of the trip: The Twin Dolphin Inn was clean, the people pleasant, the rooms good sized, the beds comfortable, and the view was as promised. However, it is an older hotel. When taking a shower, there was no need to add cold water as by turning the hot on all the way, the temperature ...

... on Friday. Drove
to the Hearst Castle entrance, pretty sure we had to pay to drive up to
it so we headed back to the motel to wash the car with Rich's boxers
and America's fairy liquid, didn't really make much difference! Went
back to Cambria for dinner then home to repack everything that had been
spread out through the car ready for returning it on Friday.

... and some buildings dating back to the 1870's. Next stop was the elephant seal sanctuary. This is a great pull out. You can walk for a ways on either side of the pull out and observe the elephant seals. There is also usually a docent available to explain about the seals, as well as plaques explaining what you are seeing. We saw lots of younger seals, sparing and chatting. It was quite noisy. But the wind was blowing the right way ...

You know that you are traveling with your 85 year old mother when she brings out all her stuff in plastic bags and on hangars! Also when she brings out her cooler and traveling food "just in case we get hungry so we don't have to eat out all the time". We loaded up the xterra and off we started. I had chosen the scenic route for the GPS and it did not disappoint. We started off heading up 14 to I5 when the GPS said turn so I ...

... morning, we drove 15 miles down the coast to Morro Bay, famous for its 'rock' a few hundred metres from the beach. We had a drink at the harbour and watched the seals and surfers in the water for a while. Morro is very pretty, but it has a massive powerplant next to the harbour that really spoils the area. You can't help but look at it and say 'What were they thinking?'.

We headed back to the house and got ready to go out for dinner - the property ...

... State Park (no relation to Michelle!) where we walked along small coastal path to see a waterfall and a state protected beach overlooking the ocean. It was very nice but not worth the $10 dollars the state park wanted for parking, so do what we did and park along the road and walk the extra distance.

Driving further north we encountered some strange weather of very low lying clouds blocking visibility and from a distance looked like islands. We soldiered on and headed for Monterey.

... to the south? The desert landscape did start to green up with fruit and nut orchards often on one side of the road, and dirt on the other. The kind of dirt that makes you think dust bowl. But then came a freshness in the air, real trees in greener valleys and lots of winery signs. I was getting chilly. Thank goodness the vest and scarf were not cool any longer because the last 20 minutes of the ride would have been cold. Cambria signs and side streets came up ...

... in a circle; it's on every first Thusday). We came quite late so we only experienced the bikes circling around. We got Frozen Yoghurt - It's soft ice cream. You take a cup and fill in the ice cream you want and the add topings (there's a hole variaty and you an take as much you want and from everything you want.) like brownies, smarties, gummibears, chocolate chips, fresh raspberries, fresh strawberries, chocolate fudge, cookie dough, yoghurt drops, mars ...

... in, the incredibly scenic McWay falls dropping 80 feet right onto the sandy beach. Just imagine, laying on the beach, listening to the waves rolling in and when you need to cool off , just head over to the waterfall, or be practical and position yourself under the waterfall from the beginning. There's even a cave for adventurers. So here's quite possibly the best beach ...

Hallo Allemaal, Na een lange reis van Baarlo naar Amsterdam naar Londen naar Los Angelos naar Santa Maria naar Oceano ben ik dan eindelijk aangekomen. Het is hier winter maar dan wel met een graad of 20. :) Heb hier een top huis en een echte amerikaanse grote wagen gekregen. Die wagen heb je ook wel nodig want het huis en het bedrijf liggen wel een stukje van het centrum af. Het ...