Muskrat Love

Monday we had some rain here. Lou likes these clouds. We usually don't get defined puffy clouds in Palo Alto. Here in Bakersfield they evidently do.




Tuesday and Thursday we took morning walks below the bluffs along the river and canals East of Manor Street in Bakersfield. The weather was nice. The canal is kind of bare but there were lots of ducks, Canadian geese, blue heron, and sandpipers?


We also saw what looked like little river otters. We've never seen these here before. Turns out they are probably muskrats (per our National Audubon Society field guide for California). They look like an otter except for size and the look of the tail. 24 inch long rats swimming along, diving and eating vegetation as they float downstream is an interesting sight. They're cute as otters anyway.

Wednesday night we chased another moving house. The crew now recognizes us. This one went southwest of town about 20 miles to Buena Vista, almost to Taft. They miscalculated clearance for some bridge abutments and other fixed objects which adjusted the look of the house appropriately. This house was about 45 feet wide and 70 feet long. It kind of filled the road.

Exciting Bakersfield!

Friday afternoon we went to the Kern County Fair. It was Senior Day, admission and parking free, you can't beat free though it would have felt better if they had checked our ID rather than wave us in? The Fair was better than on our last visit but in some ways it is becoming a standard urban fair. There are lots of crafts and animals. FFA and 4H are going strong. But, for an agricultural town, there were very few vegetables and fruits entered, taken over by off track betting. Most of the buildings were commercial. There were very few tractors and other farm equipment on display. It was better than last time only because they have done some renovations of the facilities. We had some fun and survived the food.
Saturday morning Lou and I took a walk around the neighborhood. On our return home, we noticed that some houses nearby that are being moved were ready to hit the road.


We had been waiting to watch this so we got the bikes out and followed the first one out down the road. They seemed to have their act together and to our surprise were moving about 25 miles per hour most of the time. We managed to stay with them. After about 6-7 miles they got to the BNSF mainline railroad crossing.



They had to wait for clearance to cross the track and when they started out again with us on their tail, Lou's front tire went flat, so, end of chase. We intended to hold the house open at noon and it was past 11am so I raced back to get the car and returned to pickup Lou. After we setup the open house signs, I noticed they were back and preparing the other half of the house that left previously so I returned with the car, and camera for the second round, leaving Lou with the open house. It turns out it was a good thing we had the flat because they went on for another 3-4 miles before they reached their destination.

I like to watch projects like this so I watched until they had the house placed and aligned on its new pad. They didn't do everything like I would have done, but they were OK for professionals.
Can you beat this for excitement?

Wonderful Bakersfield

We returned to Bakersfield this afternoon after having a nice walk on the Pismo beach and breakfast in Arroyo Grande. We took Hwy 166 east from Santa Maria.
The weather has really been nice here in Bakersfield this time. Gone are the triple digit temperatures. Highs are now in the 80's. Great!
We had a lot of visitors for the open house on Saturday. On Sunday, very few? There are several more homes for sale in our neighborhood now. We were the only house available before. This may be good for bringing traffic to see ours?
I updated the Favorite RV Parks and Campsites pages. They should be more informative now. I also wrote a new article on Traveling In An RV With A Cat that might be of interest.
During the weekdays we've just been relaxing and checking out different areas around Bakersfield.
On Thursday, we woke up the RV and drove down to get gas before the price goes through the ceiling due to Rita coming to visit Texas. We also went to the Ranch market for breakfast and did our laundry. We also had a Realtor drop by to show the hose to a client. Fingers crossed!
On Wednesday the County Fair began. We plan on Going Friday.

Go Fly A Kite

The Pismo Beach Pier is just North of our campground.

On an evening walk down the beach we saw some sanderings skittering along in the surf.

On the left above is the boardwalk trail heading South through the dunes which we walked this morning. On the right above, it looks like blue flowers but is actually the cones on eucalyptus trees.
We looked around Grover City shops this afternoon.

Lou enjoying the lawn in our camp and then flying her new kite on the beach. We bought the kite on our morning walk downtown yesterday. It's a nice butterfly.

Pismo Beach, Ca

We moved to Pismo Beach State Park, North Beach Campground this morning. Our campsite has some nice green grass for Mr Milo, some afternoon shade for us, is fairly well isolated from other camps and has a nice open sky for the Motosat. We walked downtown for a late lunch of fish and chips at Pismo Fish and Chips restaurant (505 Cypress Street). They have the best fish and chips we've found anywhere south of Crescent City. We looked around the shops downtown. Pismo Bobs Hardware and Nursery is extremely interesting. For a small hardware store, they are far better stocked than most others, especially the "big box' type. Their nursery has some very interesting items. We also stopped at another nursery/kayak shop down the road. Plumeria's Garden and Gifts (470 Price Street) has an even more interesting collection of nursery items including 15 foot tall dinosaurs and a cute shop cat. We took an evening stroll down the beach to Oceana Beach and then back up the Pacific Coast Highway to our camp.

SLO El Churro Regional Park

A nice flower in the SLO Botanical Garden next to our RV park.

Lou and I attended a presentation on succulents by Matt Ritter, a professor from Cal-Poly and Director of the Cal-Poly Botanical Conservatory. It was very interesting covering everything from how they fit into the plant kingdom to why ours always die a painful death.

The youngest botany student at the presentation.


We went out to dinner with Uncle Doug, Aunt Helen and friends to the Quarterdeck in Pismo Beech. (L to R: Francine, Max, Lou, Helen, Doug, Darwin, Goldie, Vera, Clarence, Harold, and Karen). All the friends are RV travel buddies.
Doug and Helen are headed back to Bakersfield Sunday.

Back to San Luis Obispo

Wednesday, I replaced the dishwasher for the tenant in San Jose. They also get a new refrigerator next week. Both were in their twenty somethings. Ok, enough already! Lou and I did a lot more cleanup around our house and the three of us, Mr Milo included, finally headed out of town again late Thursday Afternoon. We stopped for dinner in Gilroy because we had escaped just ahead of the evening traffic jam and it was dinner time. We stopped at the Longhorn Restaurant on Monterey Highway. We shared a nice londen broil steak.
We arrived at El Churro Regional Park in San Luis Obispo about 8pm. The place is fairly empty so we got the campsite we were in last time, a pull through with a view. We were tired so we just dropped anchor and will hookup tomorrow.
We called Don's Uncle Doug and Aunt Helen to meet for Breakfast tomorrow morning. Last week, they drove their RV over to their timeshare RV park in Pismo Beach.
We're not sure how long we'll be here a couple of days to a week? Boy, retirement is nice!
Now that we're here, perhaps I'll get some pictures. I have a couple to add to some previous posts but not much has been photogenic recently.

Another Good Sale

We held another garage sale this weekend. It's been fairly successful by providing a little extra cash and getting rid of some "stuff." We've gotten to know many more of our neighbors and other strangers. At the rate we're going, I figure we only need to hold about fifty more sales to make a real dent in the "stuff."
We did have a little more excitement this morning because we had to call the police to talk to a drunk bothering the neighbor. We couldn't have ask for better weather.

A Long Walk

Well, it's Thursday already.

This past week Dawn got a new evaporative cooler in her apartment in San Jose. It was fun installing it. For some reason nothing is ever simple. The cooler had to be installed high in the window because access is still needed to get past it to the electrical panel so you can go under it now.
Earlier in the week, new garbage, recycle, and compost containers were delivered to our house in Palo Alto. Our modern city is moving toward automating the garbage pickup. I'm not sure it will be an improvement for efficiency. There are too many cars parked on the street so it will be difficult to ever use one of the pickup arms to empty the cans. They'll still have to have the driver get out to roll the cans out but they won't have to lift them any more. Less injuries? Anyway, the containers are bigger now so I filled them up from the piles in the yard. We're having another garage sale this weekend. Maybe we'll make headway on reducing the mess around here?
This morning Lou and I took a long walk by Bol Park, in South Palo Alto, for a visit to the donkeys (inspiration for the donkey on Shrek, the movie from PSI.) PSI used to be a few blocks from our house before they went big time and moved to Redwood City. We continued past Gunn High School where Lou used to work, through Los Altos to San Antonio Mall. We did a little shopping at Trader Joe's and Sears then headed home, a 5-6 mile walk. We plan to start to do this about three times per week. We could head downtown, to Stanford or Menlo Park as alternate routes.
Today I had a dentist appointment in the late afternoon. All's well.