People, Places, and Things

Sixteen days into our housesit and what do we have to show for it?  Well, it's not like that really.  Because of our length of stay on this trip, the urgency to get out and do is muffled a bit and each day takes its own shape without much strategery!  Here are some more photos ops from the last few days here on the west coast.  Starting with our 3 responsibilities while we are here, then to a lunch spot in SLO (San Louis Obispo for you outsiders).

These are our charges while their "momma" is out living the dream.
Momma on the left (the mother of the two on the right), Mow Mow is under
the chair, and Willie is on the right.  All sweet babies!

Recognize the name?  Uh huh...  New life to an old landmark.

Same place from back in the day.

A tourist town without a festival is like, well...a tourist town without good marketing and there are plenty of activities from farmer's markets almost everyday of the week, music venues of all kinds, and more festivals than you can throw money at.  We happened to hit the 35th Annual Morro Bay Harbor Festival.  Held on the Embarcadero (a landing place especially on an inland waterway...thank you Merriam-Webster!)

Just in time for the festival, the San Salvador.  As part of the maiden voyage of
Juan Rodriques Cabrillo's Spanish Galleon, this full-scale replica was built by
the Maritime Museum of San Diego of the first European ship to explore
California's coastline.

A copied pic from their website shows just how small this ship was.  See the
people on board?  Not the big pirate ship of Capt. Jack Sparrow by any means.
But back in the mid 1500's, this explored the California coast.

Of course there are always a selection of woody's at the beach!

The obligatory Jimmy Buffet cover band.

And topping it off...fireworks being shot off over the heads of endangered
 birds and sea mammals in the bay.

Along the Embarcadero, there are of course no shortage of ocean/beach trinket shops and art galleries.  I got lucky and found some art that spoke to me.  Still considering one to take up space on a wall at home.

Entitled, "Three sheeps to the wind"
My kind of art mixed with my kind of humor...genius!

Entitled, "Sheep faced on martinis"
Just Awesome!

The local flora is always exciting to see, especially when there are such unique specimens to be had, even if it is just down the street.  Not a lot of grass in the area, but lots of succulents to be found in this drought stricken area...more on this in another post.

Incredible pines.  Thick trunks and uniquely close to the ground.

This live oak growing out of the side of what
appears to be nothing but rock...
take my word for it(...bad lighting!).

There is always another beach to explore.  The coastline is so varied and unique.

Avila Beach, very traditional, very beachy.

A rugged shoreline in Pismo, very picturesque, very rocky.

With all this out and about-ness, there are the food choices made each day.  More on this as well, but the two below sum up the opposite ends of the spectrum.

A relatively new Health Food (hell food) store Betty put on our map in SLO.
Already visited it twice!

And then there are the In-N-Out Burgers!
Does that not just make you smile?

Last and possibly least, I always appreciate good humor in the Men's Room, not too far from "Gum Alley."  Not in an art gallery (but it may have well been in one), but a pizza place in downtown SLO.  Thoughts in print can be art, right?

Give us a few more days to pump some more greenbacks into the economy here and we will see you again.


My Zen from the Road:  KISS... We are in the land of recycling and all that is reuse and reduce.  Outside in the side yard to our temporary home are 3 bins...one for garbage, one for yard waste and one for recycling (plastics, paper, etc...).  Inside the kitchen, there is a small plastic container, a little bigger than a loaf of bread, that is for food scraps.  It is to be dumped into the yard waste bin for collection...once a week mind you.  Since our time here, I have heard some of the citizenry speak of this unique twist added to their recycling efforts here and even read a piece under the Op-Ed heading in the paper.  Think about food scraps sitting around for a week in the kitchen and then dumping that into a huge yard waste container that may not have any yard waste in it, depending on the time of year.  Contemplate all that for just a minute....I'll wait...
From what I can tell, the folks here are giving it a shot, but skepticism lurks.
I heard this K.I.S.S. thing before and it seems to fit the approach being taken here as they take recycling to the next level...Keep It Simple Stupid!