Out and About: Harmony, CA

 Harmony, CA

November 23, 2018

Under drizzly skies we drove to the town of Harmony. Nestled between Cayucos and Cambria on Highway 1, it's one of those places you would miss if you blinked or were not paying attention. Our destination was Harmony Glassworks, we wanted to watch art glass being made.

It was Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, probably not a good time to visit. The furnaces were cold and dark, no glass blowing today.

So instead the five of us took a stroll around the tiny town, population 18 - if you count the cows.

Gladys the Town Cow

 Holy Cow: Moo-nipero Serra

 Harmony of Love

Thumbelina

(Thumbelina is a 12 month community collage in the making.  Individual thumbprints from visitors far and near who visited the San Luis Obispo Farmers Market and other local events left a lasting impression and stamp of approval with their thumbs.) CowParade SLO, North County.

 

Harmony turned out to be a picture-perfect town.

Out and About: California Central Valley

Southeastern San Luis Obispo County

Carrizo Plain National Monument

April 2, 2017

Last week The Man and I took a leisurely Sunday drive on the Suzuki V-Strom motorcycle to see the spring wildflowers in bloom.

 

From Santa Margarita we headed east on Highway 58. It wasn't long before we began to see splashes of color in the nearby hills.

From Hwy 58 we turned right onto Soda Lake Road and entered the Carrizo Plain National Monument. The Monument was established on January 17, 2001 by President Bill Clinton.

Today the Monument boasted an abundance of color - the hills, the flat lands - everywhere you looked seemed to be carpeted with flowers.

The wildflowers were attracting swarms of people.

This was unlike the other times The Man had been to the area. In the past he's usually the only visitor.

 

Soda Lake, normally a dry lake bed, shimmered blue along the wetlands. (When the lake water evaporates, white deposits of sulfates and carbonates that look like baking soda, will be left behind.)

It was a spectacular day for a 2-Up motorcycle ride. It was well worth it to see the Super (albeit a bit crowded) Bloom.

Runaround Sue

Serendipity: an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

Last week The Man and I drove south to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. We went to see a special exhibit called, A T. Rex Named Sue. We had watched the documentary, Dinosaur 13, and learned that Sue was an extremely well-preserved, nearly complete, 67-million-year-old fossil, and her discovery prompted an intense legal battle over her ownership.

Okay, silly me, I thought I was going to see the actual Sue, the 8.4 billion dollar dinosaur, instead of "Traveling Sue", an exact replica. Only after looking at all the exhibits, did I go up to The Man and ask, "Is this the real dinosaur?" Yep, kinda slow sometimes. A few minutes later I overheard a kid, a little kid,  say, " . . . and some people thought they'd bring the real Sue here . . . . " (He was not looking my way.)

I was disappointed about Sue not being "real" but enjoyed the permanent exhibits and the bygone-days-dioramas from the '50's. The docents were kind and listened patiently to our stories of close encounters with wild things as we looked at the stuffed displays of mountain lions, raccoons, bobcats, skunk and other critters.

We crossed paths with Frank Hein, the Director of Exhibits, on our way to the Butterfly Pavilion. We asked him about the replica and he enthusiastically told us about the exhibit: There's two Traveling Sues on tour, it took 7 people to set her up - directed by someone from the Field Museum in Chicago (where the real Sue lives), the display has been to Boston and Hawaii - then he took out his iPhone and showed us the pictures of them setting up the display and how the skeleton is perfectly balanced. Sue and the displays arrived in 3 big semi rigs which must've been a feat in itself. Even The Man's Dodge Ram truck seemed too big as he maneuvered through the older narrow residential area near the Museum.

Okay, now I'm impressed by the effort taken to present A T. Rex named Sue exhibit and glad we made the day trip to Santa Barbara.

As I wrote this post I remembered Bishop Museum on Oahu had a dinosaur display while we lived there so I googled and found a Honolulu Star-Bulletin article dated Saturday, July 15, 2000. The first line read "You'd have to be extinct not to have heard about Hawaii's newest and biggest star, a 45-foot dinosaur named Sue." I thought it was amazing that Hawaii received Traveling Sue in July, the Field Museum Sue exhibit had just opened two months earlier in May. (The Dinosaur 13 documentary premiered in 2014.)

This is funny, the article also stated, "Sue, wearing two dinosaur-size orchid leis for the occasion, was illuminated by dozens of flashbulbs and home video camera lights." Remember, this was in the year 2000, a time before cellphones with built-in cameras.

I continued to read, " . . . it took 2 years to bring Sue to Hawaii. Richard Duggan, who was in charge of assembling Sue, and McDonald's of Hawaii were instrumental in lobbying to get Sue to Hawaii; the other traveling exhibit opened in Boston last month. Duggan worked at Chicago's Field Museum for several years before transferring to Hawaii."

Wait. What? Richard Duggan. Richard. Duggan.

He was our neighbor in Kaneohe. Yep, no kidding. His wife Susan was our librarian at the Kaneohe branch till she transferred to town but we saw them both several times a week since they lived at the end of the street and had to pass by our house. Susan loved the idea that The Man remodeled our home by borrowing library books. She could follow our home improvement progress by the books we checked out.

Serendipity, a happy accident, a happy coincidence? I often tell The Man my spirits and guides are talking to me and I listen.

 ~ ~ ~

SLO Yarns blog is approaching it's fourth birthday. If it wasn't for a technical glitch I could have said I've posted an entry every single week for four years. Okay, truthfully, it was user error not a glitch - I had an entry queued up to automatically post July 1st while we were on the road to Colorado but didn't press the "done" button so the entry didn't get posted automatically like I assumed it would.

About every other month or so I think about giving the blog up. This thought usually crosses my mind on a beautiful Sunday or Saturday morning (like today) when The Man waves to me as he hops on his KLR motorcycle for a Central Coast back roads ride.

Fortunately, it's only a fleeting thought. I turn back to my MacBook, sip my coffee, and find my words: I love the words.

Fairly Lucky

The California Mid-State Fair, our county fair, came to an end last Sunday after a 12-day run.

I requested to be off my usual Wednesday workday so I could experience the annual Cattle Drive. On opening day the cattle and horseback riders travel through the streets of Paso Robles to the gates of the Fairgrounds.

Last year, The Man and Z. were nearly run over and I thought that would be fun to see. Well, not the trampled upon part, just the parade of cows walking through the streets, front lawns, gardens, you know . . . wherever they want to go. Yeehaw.

Sadly, no such luck. A few days before the event we read that due to "logistical issues" there would be no annual Cattle Drive. The property for staging the cattle and horse riders had been sold (for future development) and no longer available for use. Sigh. I hope there's a Plan "B" in the works for next year.

So, anyway, last Thursday, we got to the Fair an hour before the gates officially opened at noon.

We tried to get there early for Swine Showmanship but by the time we arrived it was over as evidenced by Cora's 4-H hog, Sassy, chillin' and relaxing in her pen. We said a quick hello and goodbye to Sassy and left to check out the rest of the happenings:

The Beef Barn

  
 Decisions, decisions: Deep fried bacon wrapped pickles or Deep fried bacon wrapped jalapenos.

The very eclectic, homey, sometimes strange (but always interesting) Home Arts exhibits

Sheep relaxing in the Mutton Bustin' arena before the Wool Riders (6 years old and younger) show up.

After a late lunch of BBQ pork sandwiches we walked back to our car which was parked in the "shade" of a big oak tree, it was 103°. Time to head home.

The next evening we returned to the fair. A lot more people on a not-so-hot Friday night.

We went to see The Mavericks in concert. They were playing two free shows. We saw them two years ago, also a "free with paid admission show". Lucky us.

  

 And, hey, it was a blue moon (second full moon of the month).

Wait, there's more: the International Space Station passed right over us. The Man subscribes to Spot the Station and had received an email earlier in the day. It lets him know where and when to look in the night sky for the ISS (cough, cough, geek).

Time: Fri Jul 31 9:30 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 59 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE

Okay, my photo shows only a speck (um, top left of the banner, yeah, that one) but, hey, it's still cool beans. C'mon, The International Space Station. Lucky us.
 

And you know that Deep fried pickle wrapped in bacon? Never got a chance. Lucky me, there's always next year at "The Biggest Little Fair Anywhere".

Out and About: Coastal Coolness

 Cambria
Pines by the Sea
July 26, 2015

Last Sunday we spent the afternoon at the beach. It was forecasted to be another scorcher of a day so we decided to beat the heat by chillin' at the coast.

While I made a lunch The Man readied his motorcycle. The KLR doesn't really like packing a passenger so The Man needs to sweet talk the bike and adjust a few doohickeys here and there. (I'm just stiffening up the shocks, not a big deal, he reassures the bike.)

First stop, Jack Creek Farms, off of Hwy 46 West.

 

The small store was stocked with yummy Made in SLO products, and cool refreshments but we made our way back outdoors to check out their goats. Last September we read that a mountain lion had killed three goats and four geese. What a sad day that must have been. We fed the remaining three goats newly fallen apples we picked off the ground.

The heat of the day gave me prickly sensations on my back. Very prickly. Then lower than my back. Um, biting. The Man and I made our way to a nearby (clean!) Porta-Potty. Sure enough, ants in my pants. Time to move on.

Next we took a scenic back road called Santa Rosa Creek Road. Last month we traveled this same road in the opposite direction and met author and adventure travel writer, Linda Ballou. We were enjoying the vista view and our Tootsie Pop and she pulled off the road to join us for a lollipop break.

This is what she wrote about her trip: If a drive along a shady creek and farms festooned in bright blooms appeals, you would enjoy a Sunday drive up Santa Rosa Creek Road out of Cambria. It gets a bit daunting as it rises to meet Highway 46 back to SLO, but it is well worth the butterflies to get to the vistas.

6/26/15

I gotta say going down from the vista is equally daunting thrilling. After several miles of hairpin (switchback) turns on rough road we ended up in Cambria. Driving slowly through the crowded downtown, we made a U-turn to take a closer look at a vehicle we had just passed.

It was a MAN, an off-road camper . . . an expedition vehicle . . . an RV on steroids for a traveling family of four from Switzerland. At least that's the little I gathered from their website, which is written in German. And, get this, before they pulled away they raised the back end of their vehicle. Yes, the camper got even taller than the picture I took.

MAN and The Man

We left downtown Cambria and traveled north along Moonstone Beach Drive. We stopped at Leffingwell Landing, a day-use park, part of Hearst San Simeon State Park. We found a picnic table out of the wind. The breezy marine air was chilly enough to encourage us to keep our motorcycle jackets on. After lunch we made our way down to the small beach.

There were only a handful of people on the beach and they were all busy searching in the sand. A woman visiting from New Mexico showed us her small baggie of polished pebbles and pointed out the tiny moonstones she had found.

The Man and I found a spot out of the wind and started our own treasure hunt. The small rocks sparkled in the sun, smooth and beautiful, worn down to a shiny gleam. We sat on the warm "sand" and selected a few handfuls of our own polished pebbles to take home.

Later,  I googled "moonstone" and found out they are a true gemstone. I don't think we found any real moonstones, just pretty white rocks and quartz chips.

The next time a heat wave is in our forecast we'll be heading back to the coast to find shimmery moonstones. It's only a 35-minute drive to the coast, though it takes much longer with a motorcycle that follows the road-less-traveled.