Santa Cruz to San Luis Obispo.
Rough nite, last night. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep.
After some discussion this morning, it was decided to strike for San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria or even Santa Barbara – depending on how far we got before dark. We also decided to take the inner highway 101 route as we’ve already done the slower, coastal route 1 on the way north.
We have breakfast at the motel and then ride downtown for coffee at Starbucks.
After coffee and back in the room, I spend some time thinking about the fact that we’ve been in a fender-bender earlier with the Budget rent-a-car. Then I call them to see if my thoughts on how to handle all of that and how to sequence the different parts is OK. It is so now I know what to do and when and that’s nice. I’ll turn the car in at LAX with the accident report and then sort out the forms the credit card company needs back in New Zealand a few days later.
We’re free after all this so we pack up and get on the road like we have so many times in these last 50 days or so. Bummer though. I forget my 2nd and last A/C wall charger cable and plug in the room. Now the only way I can charge my iPhone and IPad is in the car. Ouch!
The drive’s nice. The inland route is fast. We make a few stops along the way. We check out a small town called San Ardo. Tiny. Probably put the ‘dunk’ into the term ‘podunk’. We also stop at one of the California Missions along the way. It’s small but pretty and monks/friers are still living and working there.
About 4 PM or so, we pull into San Luis Obispo (SLO) and elect to stay there. This time we look at a map and plan our trip into the town. Works ever so much better!
The place we stayed before for $69 now wants $99 but will dicker down to $89 but no further. They say it’s because it’s a high volume time between Xmas and New Years. Yeah right. We go directly across the street and get a perfectly fine and equivalent room for $59 with no quibbling. (When we came in later this evening, the original place across the street still has the ‘vacancy’ sign lit. We laughed!).
After checking in, we took a walk downtown which is about 10 blocks. It was our lucky night similar to what happened in Monterey when we were there just over a month ago. There was a Thursday Night Farmer’s Market being setup. Cool.
We sat out, in absolutely fine tee-shirt weather, at an outside table at a Japanese Fusion Sushi Restaurant and ate Sushi and people watched. And the crowds in the street just kept getting bigger as the time wore on.
When we were done eating, the street market was on full bore and we walked up and down digging it three times before we walked home and settled in here after a most excellent day.
dennis