Central Coasting

Not to be confused with central casting from the movies.

We're at the end of our short vacationish trip to the Central Coast of California.   Our current location has very slow internet so I will wait until we get home this weekend to put up pictures.

We left home a week ago on Thursday.  I had business in Denver on Thursday morning.  I flew back in the afternoon.  Wife picked me up at the airport in Albuquerque around 3:30 and we drove 4.5 hours to Flagstaff.  We were off the next morning early as we had a 10.5 hour drive to get to Salinas, CA to visit with friends Steve and Lady Di.  We got there around 5:30 and they had a full spread as usual.  Lady Di is a wonderful cook and hostess as I've commented in the past.  A lovely meal with plenty of wine was followed by a early to bed by the long driving de-I clan.

I was up early in the morning to go for a walk-hike with Lady Di.  They live in the coastal hills between Salinas and Monterey.  They're really steep and you do a lot of going up and down (as opposed to just going up in one direction and down back as I do in the Sandias.  She's also in great shape so I was hustling to keep up.  With all of Lady Di's culinary prowess, I discovered that she had never made pasta from scratch (intimidation by an Italian Aunt who owned a restaurant and made all her pasta by hand).  So I bought her a pasta rolling machine.  Lady Di, Wife, and I all chipped in in the making, rolling, and cutting of the pasta.  She also had this fabulous on the bone pork loin roast which was the most juicy pork I've ever had.  More bottles of wine were consumed.  On Sunday morning we drove south to a winery in the Santa Lucia Highlands.  We did some tasting and brought a picnic lunch over looking the vineyards and the Salinas Valley.  I bought a case of wine (and had bought a couple of cases on Saturday as well) since wine buying was one of the reasons for the trip.

We said our goodbyes after lunch and then headed south to the Paso Robles area about 100 miles.  We have rented a house out in the wine country where Daughter #1, husband 1A, and grandchildren 1.1 and 1.2 were joining us for a few days.  The house is this big ass property in the middle of no where.  Incredibly quiet except for the frogs (right next to Daughter's bedroom).  We had French Picnic for dinner sitting out in the back patio.

On Monday, we all drove down to Pismo Beach south of San Luis Obispo.  The kids did their iPhone research and found us an excellent seafood place.  Then we went on the beach where the grandkids played in the sand and stuck their feet in the ocean (wasn't all that warm).  I bought everyone the obligatory grandparental ice cream cone.  Then back to the rental for lots of playing with grandkids and grilling steak and chicken over the fire.

Tuesday was Grandparents alone time with 1.1 who is 8.  We drove with her to the coast, had lunch in Cambria and then went to Hearst Castle.  If you haven't ever been there, it is an amazing place built by William Randolph Hearst in the early part of the 20th century as a residence to resemble a southern Spanish town.  The art work, the workmanship, the grounds are pretty incredible.  I hope my pictures will do it justice.  We got back for more playing, relaxing, grilling, eating, and drinking in the evening.

Wednesday, we visited a friend of #1 and 1A who live in the area.  She is a real estate broker but also an amateur wine expert.  She gave us a very extensive list of wineries to potentially visit.  One of them she knows the wine maker personally.  So she arranged for him to give us a tour.  It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of information.  We could only make it to two wineries and we bought another couple of cases.  Fortunately I have some folks back home who are going to be buying some of this wine I bought!  The #1's have already headed back to their place.  We take off early in the morning for the day and a half drive back.