Drive to King's Canyon/Sequoia National Parks - June 27

We got an early start to get to the park, but not before catching a glimpse of this on the Walmart door. Good intentions gone too far we think.

Went through lots of agricultural lands and the workers were busy picking strawberries.

 
The coast was beautiful. And we got to see a peregrine falcon at Pismo Beach, as well as seals and the whitest seagulls.

 

We drove along the coast on local roads, looking at housing prices (Yikes!) and enjoying the beach towns until we reached the end of the road, at Port San Luis, where we parked and strolled along the pier.

And enjoyed the seal lions.

Then back on 101 where we saw anachronisms like this.

 And the familiar brown hills.

Finally, we began to climb and the views were beautiful. So many trees were dead because of the years of drought made them more susceptible to pine beetles. Because of the fire danger, increased because of all the dead wood, we had to stop at the Ranger Station to get a fire permit for our camp stove and to be able to have a fire in a firepit. Unlike most places, they asked us to collect and burn as much wood as we could find on the ground.

Matthew found us a great dispersed campsite, just yards away from the National Forest campgrounds. While ours lacked a pit toilet and picnic table, we had the space practically to ourselves.

 We made a great dinner,

Explored our surroundings,

 marveled at the height of these trees and wondered why some grew twisted. The answer, evidently no one knows.

All before enjoying this sunset and going to bed.

Solvang and Matthew's 60th Birthday - June 26

Today is Matthew's 60th birthday!! He has chosen to spend the day in Solvang, a Scandinavian themed town.  We said our goodbyes to Sara and Ron and headed north.

Passed an ostrich farm.

Arrived in Solvang.

And had an enjoyable time walking through the innumerable tourist shops. Matthew was amused by the name of this bank.

While Cheryl was perplexed by the proliferation of psychic shops everywhere in southern California.

And we were happy to see a yule bock, although we didn't have room to bring it with us.

But most importantly we stood in line to get aebleskivers. And they were worth it. 

It may be a birthday, but work still calls so we walked to the library so Matthew could check in on his 3 online classes and Cheryl could catch up on work also. The library was small and we could hear everything that went on at the checkout desk. We were impressed with the compassion and enthusiasm of the two librarians there. They were so great with the kids, talking to them with such respect and teaching in such kind ways. And with the adults also. It was nice to overhear.

Outside the library was this gorgeous clematis vine.

And we were pleased/surprised to see Andersen's Pea Soup signs and restaurant were still in operation all these years later.

We said goodbye to Solvang and began to make our way towards Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks, enjoying the vineyards along the way.

 Tonight's campsite was a corner of the Lompoc Walmart's parking lot. Several of the other guests seemed to be living out of their cars. Homelessness is a real problem for California.

Tues July 23

Today we packed up, said goodbye to Bryan, leaving our still beautiful bouquet in the office for others to enjoy and drove towards Mt St Helen's. We kept a few blooms, and the basil plant we had picked up to use on sandwiches.

As upsetting as it is to see all the clear-cuts and logging evidence, the numerous lumber yards were a sobering reminder of how much wood we use.

We look forward to the day we can get one of these bumper stickers.

This is our 3rd or 4th trip back to her after the eruption. The first was 12 or 13 years after when everything looked like a moonscape for miles and miles. It has been interesting to see its recovery over the years, although areas still don't have much growth. Unfortunately, the mountain wasn't showing herself today, instead, it was shrouded in clouds.

But we were fascinated by this 3-foot hole.

And these growing on a vertical wall along the road.

And the wildflowers.

And were amused by this geological marker corrected for the post-1980 elevation.

And this.

Leaving the park Matthew found us a terrific spot to boondock on Riffe Lake. 

Walking down to the lake we met a young guy who was traveling for the year with his cat, Roger, in a GMC truck that he had converted. It had a lift on the back that he used as a back porch - very clever.

Our view for the night.

O'Neill Park and Santa Barbara - June 25

Woke up early to a woman yelling and banging on tents to annoy wake a group of campers who had evidently kept her awake too late with their noise. Charming. And then there was this sign in the women's bathroom 😲

But since we were up early we decided to go for a hike on the park trails while it was cool (actually it was chilly), although this sign was a little disconcerting.

But we decided to go on anyway. As you can see, the city has encroached on the wilderness and reduced the habitat of the lions.

Pretty sure this was a lion paw print!

But the views, the trees, and the flowers were pretty,

although these were oddly placed.

We headed up the coast after our hike, enjoying seeing familiar sights from our life here decades ago, like Cook's Corner from Matthew's childhood.

The views from PCH

And a favorite Corona del Mar date night spot of ours from 33 years ago.

We arrived in Santa Barbara with some time to kill before our friend, Sara Sauter, was available so we walked along the beach and down the pier.

And watched a fire department rescue of a drone up in the palms!

Matthew was surprised to see a childhood favorite was still around. Seems the name was a combination of parts of the two original owners names but people thought it was from the book Little Black Sambo so they capitalized on that. We thought it was a very weird anachronism, especially for a progressive place like southern California.

We met up with Sara at a bar and had a wonderful time catching up before heading over to her place to see Ron and chat more. We gratefully took her up on her offer of the driveway to park the camper for the night.