Bishop Peak After the Rain

It rained steadily for hours on Friday night and even kept on for a few more hours throughout Saturday morning. After the rain, Erinn and I took advantage of the fresh air and hiked Bishop Peak. We started at the trail head on Patricia Dr. The air was so clear and clean it almost felt fake.

While I'm sure countless Californian Trick-or-Treaters were bummed by the rain, I could not have been more thankful.

A view of Cerro San Luis from Bishop Peak

Our First Three Months

Today, as I sit next to the window enjoying the first real rain of the season, I think about the last three months we've lived in San Luis and how wonderful it's been. Our first days were warm, but much cooler than Bakersfield. The following weeks were fun. Filled with hiking, driving, exploring, relaxing, and lots of other stuff. At the end of the first month, I sprained my ankle pretty severely. By the end of the second month, I could walk almost normally and we were both starting to work more consistently. And by the end of this third month, October, Erinn found a permanent job and I've been working as a sub.

Cerro Cabrillo - Just a few minutes before tumbling down the mountain

Hollister Peak in the back

Black Hill and Morro Rock behind Erinn

Cerro Cabrillo is where I twisted my ankle. We hiked to the top of the 911' peak with no problem. Just lots of pausing to catch my breath. It was the hike down that was difficult. I was winding my way down a pretty steep path when my feet slipped on some loose dirt and my right foot caught a rock, twisting it hard enough to make a pop. My ankle hurt too bad to walk, but we were still very close to the top, so there wasn't really any other option. We scooted down the hill on our butts and Erinn helped me limp the mile or so back to the car.

View from the top. Los Osos to your left. Morro Bay to your right.

Despite the injury, it's been a pretty busy few months. At the beginning of October, we got to visit San Diego for a friend's wedding. It was an amazing night watching these two wonderful people exchange vows on the waterfront with the San Diego skyline in the background surrounded by friends. They had a seriously beautiful wedding.

Recently, we've been enjoying our afternoons by reading on the beach. It's an entirely different experience to visit the beach when it's only a 15-minute drive. In the past, we'd have to drive a few hours to get here. Often, we'd be rushing ourselves to make our trip count. A couple days ago, we worked during the day, then took the short drive from San Luis to Morro Bay and listened to the waves while reading.

Today, I'm enjoying the cool, clean air of a rainy day on the coast. San Luis Obispo is such a beautiful place. We love exploring this wonderful area and all its natural beauty. If only it would rain more often!

A Thumbs Up and a Thumbs Down

Recently, some family came to visit us here on this beautiful central coast. The plan was to check out the Vintage Camper Rally in Morro Bay and see if the Airport Day at the San Luis Obispo Airport had anything fun going on. In short, the Vintage Camper Rally was disappointing and the event at the airport ended up being a lot of fun.

First, the Vintage Camper Rally was supposed to be at Morro Strand State Beach, according to VisitSanLuisObispoCounty.com. You can probably still see it written on their website here. So when we drove over there, excited to see some cool vintage RVs and trailers, and only found a sad little parking lot with a few definitely-not-vintage campers, we were pretty disappointed. We were able to find another website that said the Vintage Camper Rally was supposed to be at Morro Bay State Park, so we drove over to that campground, but were still disappointed. There were a few vintage campers, but nothing like what we were expecting, so we didn't even get out of the car. Instead, we drove back to SLO for the airport.

There were little Cessnas and big World War II planes. Helicopters and gliders. Stunt planes and commercial planes. It was very cool.

Our nephew and niece had come with us and totally loved it. They got to sit in the cockpit of lots of different planes. Once, we all got inside a big World War II transporter plane and got to see the cramped quarters of soldiers on their way to the battlefield.

We all had a lot of fun and I hope the airport will do it again sometime. After the airport, we got ribs at Mo's Smokehouse in downtown SLO for some tasty ribs, then drove to Cambria to see the scarecrows.

Frida Kahlo scarecrow

Scarecrow taking a leak

We ended the day at a small, quiet beach near the Museum of Natural History in Morro Bay State Park. It's a great place to watch the sunset.