Bakersfield, California

 

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post, a good time to catch up.

Last we were in the San Diego area.  From there we drove north to Lake Cachuma, California.  This is a county recreation area near Santa Barbara and Solvang.  We had last been there around 35 years ago to do some tent camping.  It was sad to see how the drought has impacted this lake.  The water level is way down.  The water used to be very close to the campsites but now you have to go a substantial distance to get to the shore.  We took a drive into the Solvang/Buellton area to have lunch at Anderson’s Pea Soup, walk around Solvang and, of course, do some wine tasting. 

On a recommendation from one of our wine group friends we stopped at Lincourt Winery and were very impressed with their wines.  We joined their club as they are part of a larger wine company that will give us some good benefits when we visit the Napa area later this year. 

Lake Cachuma

From Lake Cachuma we drove towards the coast for a stop in Morro Bay, California.  We have never stopped here before but visited the area many times over the years.  We stayed at a very nice RV park near the ocean with the famous Morro Rock in our view.  The RV park was a little tight as they use every available part of land for an RV space.  Fortunately we had requested a nice pull through site so it was easy to get into.  I would not want to have tried backing into the other spaces.  We had nice time walking on the ocean and walking the waterfront with its many shops and restaurants.

View from our RV park

From Morro Bay we drove a short 30 miles to Lake Lopez which is a county recreation area near the town of Arroyo Grande, California.  Here we met up with Fran’s aunt and uncle and their family.  They all have RV’s and a couple of boats.  All together we took up 5 spaces in row.  We had a great weekend catching up with them and going out on the lake in their boats.  However, we did encounter some stressful moments trying to get into our space.  We arrived a day early, Thursday.  We had selected the largest of the sites in the loop we were staying in as a group.  The problem is the site was on a curve and the road in front of it was very narrow.  It was a back in spot and there was dip at the front of the site and a big tree on one side.  I kept trying to back our rig in but the dip was causing the bike rack on the back to hit the ground and I was just not getting the right angle to get the trailer into the spot.  After discussion and analyzing the situation we decided to take the bikes and bike rack off the trailer and to try backing from a closer angle.  This worked but it was close as the back of the trailer came very close to hitting the roadway.  It took about 30 minutes and is probably the hardest backing job I have done.

Deer roaming the park

Each day a couple of times a group of wild turkeys would walk through the RV sites.  They obviously have been fed by campers as they come right up to you expecting to be fed.  They are fairly big and very noisy, especially early in the morning.  It is really cool when they fluff their feathers.

After spending the holiday weekend at Lake Lopez we left Tuesday for Bakersfield, California to spend a week. 

Route: From Santee, California we took Highway 52 west to Interstate 805 north to Interstate 5 north to Interstate 405 north to US 101 north Highway 154 to Lake Cachuma.  From Lake Cachuma we took Highway 154 to US 101 north to Morro Bay, California.  From Morro Bay we took US 101 south to Grand Ave and followed that to Lake Lopez.  From Lake Lopez we got back on US 101 south to Highway 166 east to Highway 99 north to Highway 58 east to Fairfax Road in Bakersfield.