We drove up to Morro Bay. Megan told a "Choose Your Own Adventure" to the kids. We parked at Morro Rock beach and Tim and I fed the seagulls. The "poopy bird" got Megan once again.
I started reading "The Great Gathering". The motel was within 2 blocks of the waterfront. Incredibly, we backed into a space right in front of our room and it was the easiest unloading ever. I ate chicken leftovers for breakfast and the same for lunch.
We took off for San Miguel. We saw deer in the fields. We came to San Luis Obispo. It was a neat town. We realized San Miguel was NORTH of Morro, not south, so we backtracked.
We arrived at Mission San Miguel (founded in 1797). Megan bought a nativity in the gift shop. I wanted a book called "People of the Four Circles", but it was too expensive. Megan, Tim and I went on a partial tour of the historical museum seeing old living quarters, statues and memorabilia. I took Tim to the chapel. He saw the holy water. We talked about Catholicism.
Mary and her new boarder Patsy arrived. Patsy is Cherokee/Irish. She thought Tim was 17 and Miranda 16. I got in Mary's car and she led us to lunch. We traveled over rural roads. We saw a llama farm and many farm animals. We hit a "suicide squirrel" and dodged several others (they seem to wait for the cars to dash across the road).
Mary and I told Patsy the story of our dating days and "Billy the Rat" and how we almost got married twice. I told Patsy MannaVine would be good for her COPD, but she is on SSI and will try to get a prescription from her doctor.
We arrived at Parkfield (population 18) and saw the moving stone (so many inches every few thousand years due to the fault's movement).
Mary had us stop right at the intersection of the American and Pacific shelves (we straddled them on a bridge) and stood over the San Andreas Fault (the bridge 'warbles' over it); Bob in a box monitors it full time.
We ate at Parkfield's famous restaurant. Megan , Tim and I had chili-sizes (finally, non-spicy chili). I played the peg game (one at every table) - got it down to 2 twice. Equipment hung from the ceiling; it gongs like chimes if there is an earthquake.
Tim thought the waiter looked like Vincent on Eureka. Mary talked about the murder case of the little girl that has so much conflicting evidence, it must be solved totally by forensics (after-note - she was acquitted).
On the way back Mary brought me up-to-date on her smelt (fish) California saving project. The government turned off the water for weeks and not only endangered other humans and animals to placate an eco-group, but they ended up killing smelt in the process. So Mary has been on TV trying to come up with an equitable solution.
She is aware that hard times are near, says Mitt Romney may precipitate some if he wins the election (inheriting a situation he can't solve and having Mormons be blamed for it). She says we are always welcome to stay at her place for refuge . . . if we can get there, and she's still there.
Mary gave me 3 "Transformers" comics (I was getting shaky with withdrawal), and she guided us to a WalMart, warning us to stay away from the video section, as it has an "evil spirit" that has become more pronounced as that part of the store has gotten darker. We reviewed all the movies and series we like. Mary loves "Hellboy", "Transformers", and "Red Dwarf" (does not so much like The Next Generation and Iron Man).
We had a scenic drive back to the coast on Highway 46. Miranda did an elaborate mermaid/shark Choose-your-own-adventure for Tim.
My Comments:
What Bill didn't mention was the struggle I had with hotel reservations. Miranda liked the Santa Maria hotel so much, that I had changed our Monday night reservations to this hotel, and cancelled the Arroyo Grande reservation. I had to call Maleen about that because Monday night she and her family would be staying at the same hotel as us. I thought it would be so much more convenient to just stay at the Santa Maria hotel for Sunday night too, and cancel the reservation in Morro Bay.
No such luck. Apparently the Morro Bay hotel has a 48-hour cancellation policy, and even talking to the Best Western headquarters couldn't change that. In retrospect I don't mind, as I enjoyed staying in Morro Bay, and especially enjoyed Morro Bay rock, but at the time it was very frustrating.
We ended up at the Morro Bay rock by sheer coincidence. We just kept following this road, and suddenly there we were. We parked to look down at the Morro Bay beach and had to convince Tim that we didn't really want to go down there. Feeding the seagulls with our trail mix kept him occupied. I love this picture of the seagull on the hood of our car because he kinda blends in with Tim.
And yes, as I stretched out my arm to point something out, one of the flying seagulls pooped on my arm. I don't mind having water attracted to me, but bird poop is another thing!
I really liked the gift shop at Mission San Miguel. There was another figure that I almost purchased as well, but I knew we would be going to Solvang the next day, so I reined myself in and just got the nativity from Peru.
The specialty dessert at the Parkfield restaurant was an apple dumpling. For some reason, Miranda's order got delayed, so they gave her an apple dumpling to eat while she was waiting. She said it was VERY good. After our lunches, everybody ordered apple dumplings (except me, because of the gluten problem), but the waiter came back to tell us that all of the apple dumplings that were left had been "pre-ordered" by a family having dinner there. We all settled for ice cream instead, but Miranda had really lucked out.
My overwhelming memory of that day is driving like mad to keep up with Mary's car in front of us, and wandering over these back roads that didn't seem to be going anywhere. We had to dodge a lot of the squirrels too. Mary later explained to Bill that passing cars disturb the insects that the squirrels like to eat, and that's why they're dashing out into the road. I guess it would be a little hard for a squashed squirrel to 'learn by experience' that this isn't the best idea. I'm really glad that Bill had a chance to ride in Mary's car and catch up on everything with her - and equally glad that I didn't have to take part.
My favorite memory from this day was when Miranda was doing the mermaid/shark story for Tim, and the shark guided him onto a bubble that ate him. The shark chuckled and said "Gets them every time". We really do have a very creative family.
1 comment:
Seriously people, where was your GPS. These stories about getting lost are driving me crazy.
I wish I could have had Miranda in my car. We tried a choose your own adventure style with dice, and poor Price Vincent never even finished his quest, but that is probably because the naiads were clearly stronger than him. (He had to go back several times to fight them—it was embarrassing.) But I had no witty lines like Miranda's shark.
Have I ever met Mary?
A whole city founded on Earthquake stuff is a little creepy to me, but what do you do?
It is interesting to hear what you ate, although it makes me a little sad that we didn't get to eat out more and try new things, but with kids, we wouldn't have gone to many nice restaurants anyway.
Keep up the blogging. Can't wait until you meet us.
Post a Comment