RV etiquette says you don’t knock on someone’s door when all the curtains are closed. I was a bad girl this morning. I got Shadowtracks out of bed. Shadowtracks is the screen name of one of our Escapees classmates—one we hadn’t met in person yet. He was camped at Francis Beach campground at Half Moon Bay when we pulled in there yesterday. But, he wasn’t home then. Now we were getting ready to leave the campground and he wasn’t up yet. So, I knocked on his door at 10:15 a.m. He said he’s glad I did by I’m not sure he meant it. Anyway we visited for a few minutes before we hit the road. He has friends in the area and he was with them last night but after we talked about the storm that’s coming he thinks maybe he’ll leave sooner than he had planned. He needs to get to Phoenix next week and that means a trip through the mountains which he’d rather not do with snow on the ground.
As we were driving south we saw a sand dune that had blown all the way over the shoulder of the road to the white line marking our lane. Moments later we saw a sign saying, “ Drifting Sand.” Duh!
Hmm. Maybe that’s what we should have called ourselves—The Drifting Sands.
I saw a bicyclist with a surfboard strapped to his back. He was stopped by the side of the road. I’m not sure he could actually ride the bike that way. It made me think of something our nephews would have tried to do.
The sign said, “U pick kiwi fruit,” to which I replied, “No, thank you.” I don’t like kiwi.
In Santa Cruz the 7-11 store was PINK.
The Lions Club Christmas tree lot was at the Elks Club. I wonder why?
We stopped in Monterey for lunch. Denny’s has a new once-a-year treat: pancake puppies. They look like donut holes and are coated with cinnamon and sugar. I didn’t use the syrup they served with them for dipping. They were just right without that. They made me think if the mini-donuts we used to get at the Minnesota State Fair. I ate two with my lunch and saved the rest for later.
We missed our way back to the highway and ended up on another of those steep, curvy roads. We wound up doing a U turn at the edge of a cliff. We may have to start using our GPS more often.
While still on that steep, curvy road I saw a real estate sign said, “Lot with water.” I didn’t see any creek so maybe that meant it had a well. That would make it even more expensive than land is around here anyway.
In Carmel, we stopped for gas. The first two stations we came to didn’t have diesel. Fortunately, the third one did. So now we are set for the long drive between the coast and the Santa Lucia Mountains where there aren’t a lot of towns.
Still in Carmel, I had the urge to tell a driver that the world would not come to an end if she stopped talking on her phone. I suspect she thinks it would.
As we travel I often get songs going through my head and some of them make me think of things I would not ordinarily think. For instance, take the song “Standing on the Corner.” Do you suppose there really was a girl in a flat bed Ford? Winslow, Arizona, is a small town; if there was such a girl, did that song ruin her reputation?
We planned to spend the night in Lucia, California. It turned out to be a roadhouse with one cabin. We were by it before we realized that was the entire town.
So, now we need a a place to camp and there is nothing. There are pullouts beside the road where we could park but we don’t know if it is legal to do so. We’ve seen other RVs parked by the side of the road but they could just be taking a break, not camping. But the sun will be setting soon and we need to be parked somewhere before it does. I sure don’t want to be guessing what condition some pullout is in when we can’t see it since they vary widely in their suitability for camping.
Then, suddenly, there’s a National Forest Campground! It’s built on the side of a hill so we needed all our leveling blocks but we are safely, and legally, parked for the night. The standard rate here is $22 a night but my Access America Card gets us a rate of $11. This boondocking on the Pacific Coast can be expensive.
But the sunsets are beautiful.
TTYL,
Linda
Just tried something that I ran across on the Tioga & George Web site (it was in someone’s comment) and it was lots of fun. Since it’s also the way I perceive you travel, I thought I’d pass it along.
Go to http://maps.google.com/ and select Get Directions. Enter where you are and where you want to go and click on Show Options and click on the Avoid Highways option. Then click on the Get Directions button and examine the result; it’s a lot of fun, particularly in places where there is almost no choice but the interstate highway.
Best of wishes.
Bright red Ford, not flat bed Ford. LOL.