Still on stay-cation

It’s now been almost two weeks since we arrived at our campground, the one at Santa Margarita, for almost two weeks.

The KOA staff now feels like family (they said they feel the same way), and we’re getting the monthly rate.

We’ve lost track of the days and were surprised to find out last Friday that it was the weekend. Once we found out, we got excited. New people! Kids for Sophia!

There was a decent influx of new campers, and the ones we became friends with was a big group of university friends reuniting from all over California. Spread across four or five of the cabins, they numbered thirteen adults, four or so babies and two kids aged 5 and 9.

Meeting them on our morning walk to the showers, Sophia and I were immediately invited to join them in the evening. Which we did, after watching ‘Shrek II’ on the computer.

They were all really cool, telling us about themselves, how they met, what their couple/family/friend formations were….and apple pie.

I got on really well with one of the girls, Krystyn, who had taken here older daughter out of school to spend three months with her husband in Switzerland. Now that she has a new baby, she's on extended leave from work. Hopefully we'll all meet up in LA.

One guy in particular could not understand what we had been doing for the last ten days. Once pressed, we couldn’t really say.

We’ve been doing lots of laundry, working on Sophia’s birthday party invitations and our Christmas cards, and getting our car looked at every couple of days.

The fuel pump has been replaced, with the mechanic saying the other new one we got before setting off from New York may not have really been new. He also replaced some other, smaller parts, so the ignition is working really well.
Today, he’s trying to figure out why we get occasional misfires, and why the ‘service engine soon’ light sometimes goes on. This, they are doing for free, since we’ve become such good customers.

Given today’s torrential rain, they even dropped Lulu and I off at the local Starbucks – to give updates, they call Daniel and send me email updates. Sophia and Daniel are back at the campground working on building bunk beds in the Airstream.

We’ve explored the area quite a bit, visiting nearby San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles and Atascadero – this last one we now know like the backs of our hands, and people are starting to wave at us.

Yesterday, we could no longer ignore Hearst Castle, the Mediterranean pastiche dream home of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Set up on a rugged mountain overlooking the Pacific, built tirelessly by the architect Julia Morgan and home to many a glamorous party back in the day, it was pretty impressive.

With a very theatrical lady as a guide, the tour was 1 hour and 45 minutes long and followed by a highly produced movie on a giant screen.
We would have liked to hear more salacious anecdotes about all the Hollywood people, politicians and titans of industry who hung out at the place, though.
Here are some photos.

We do have to get a move on, however. There is beautiful coast to explore, Santa Barbara and its vineyards to visit, and friends waiting for us in LA.

Maybe tomorrow will be the day.

Our first guest

Laura, a great university friend, drove up from LA with her dog Claude to spend Thanksgiving weekend with us in Santa Margarita, which is just inland from California’s Central Coast and just north of San Luis Obispo.

This was our first time hosting a guest, so we were excited.

We cleaned the Airstream until it was spick and span, and most importantly, found a campground that would accommodate a tent, a dog and an extra vehicle on our site.

It worked really well, Laura and Claude staying in a tent a few feet from the trailer and all of us having meals and activities together.

Sophia and Claude became bosom buddies, and Laura helped entertain both girls.
We went on hikes, visited a wine tasting room and all caught up.

Their visit also served a practical purpose, since Daniel’s mom Barbara will be joining us for 3 weeks or so in January and February. We still haven’t figured out the sleeping arrangements – the weather is much colder than we had anticipated, and our tent too difficult to assemble day in, day out if we make a lot of stops.

So one night, we tried out an alternative sleeping plan. Laura, Claude and Sophia slept in the Airstream, while Daniel, Lulu and I slept on an inflatable mattress in the back of our car (the backseat folds down).

That turned out not to be a viable solution, so it’s back to the drawing board.

Vacation from the vacation

We’ve now spent more on repairs to our car than the $5000 we spent on the vehicle itself.
This is despite having spoiling the darn thing, replacing all manner of oils, plus windshield wipers, brake pads and rotors, tightening up the steering (“removing the play”, Daniel says that's called), new drums.
And now we’re replacing the fuel pump for a second time.
There’s more, but we can’t remember the details right now.

Right now, the car is at Mike Howe’s Automotive in the neighboring town of Atascadero. We have a courtesy car, a white Toyota Camry – the same exact one my
friend Katie Gleason’s family had in high school, automatic seatbelts and all.

Daniel had to sign something saying he was insured to drive it, which may or may not be the case.

So we’re extending our stay at the KOA campground at Lake Santa Margarita, which is a quiet, rural place nestled among sudden, rounded hills covered with that soft, native Californian grass.

Our site has plenty of space, and actually, we have the run of most of the campground since aside from a few Montana snowbirds, we are the only residents.

As soon as the Thanksgiving crowds dispersed, all manner of birds – from hummingbirds to sparrows to hawks – took back their rightful land.

When it gets dark, we hear a yelping of unknown provenance, the screams of coyotes, the hiss of something that might be a raccoon or bobcat, an unknown yelping and a mysterious thumping, galloping sound.

By day, we’re having a whale of a time entertaining ourselves. I’m working on the blog and reading (Vanity Fair from a month or two ago and ‘America and Americans’ by John Steinbeck; Daniel’s doing sketches and watercolors; Sophia’s working on painting and song performances (delivered from a giant tree stump); and Lulu is getting very close to crawling – she managed to move herself about two feet the other day.

This may sound surprising, but it’s only the second time we’ve had time to stop and relax since we started out in the Airstream in Iowa. We are on an extended holiday, yes, but being on the move all the time is exhausting.

This break is great, and perfectly timed since we have nowhere to be until the morning of December 15. We’ve been here nearly a week, long enough for the staff here to give us a night free of charge (thanks, KOA!).

We’ll send photos once we retrieve the camera charger from our (hopefully repaired for good) car.