2020 Saturday — Roadtrip

We left the house this morning about 7:15. Our destination was Cayucos on California’s Central Coast. Our desire is almost always to be there rather than Southern California, especially during the heat of summer.

We came back to Southern California on Monday, August 24th, because Mr. Fun finally was going to get to meet his urology/oncology doctor on Wednesday, August 26, to learn the test results of his most recent CTScan and lab work.

We now have a window of time, not quite two weeks before the next medical appointment on Wednesday, September 9, which is a consultation with the radiation professionals at Kaiser Permanente. The next day he will meet with the City of Hope to get a second opinion about all that we have learned from Kaiser.

The drive time is normally 4 hours or more. Today we shaved 10 minutes off of that because traffic was extremely light. We stopped three times, twice at McD’s because they are a good place usually to find a restroom. Kanan Road in Agora (San Fernando Valley) and Buellton (north of Santa Barbara) are the two McD’s. Then when we arrived in the region known as the 5 cities, we stopped to get kibble for the pups because we knew there was very little at the Cayucos house. At 12:30 we rolled into the driveway of our little lavender house. We are delighted to be back.

Several houses before arriving, the weather changed completely as we drove out of San Fernando Valley and down the hill into the area of Camarillo, which then leads to Oxnard and on to Ventura. We were riding under a blanket of overcast and we felt relief to know we had left the heat behind. Miles north of Santa Barbara as the highway turned inland to drive past Buellton and Los Alamos, the clouds evaporated again.

When we exited highway 101 to venture north west on Highway 1, we found thick overcast as we approached Morro Bay. By late afternoon we had blue skies, bright sunlight coming through the windows, and then later a lovely sunset in the clouds.

We had 12 nights in SoCal and most of those days have had temperatures in the triple digits. Anything over 85 degrees F is uncomfortable, so 100+ degrees is almost unbearable. Our AC there was on almost 24/7. We do know the temperatures here on the coast have been unusually high and lots of smokes from wildfires had this Central Coast region choking and sweating. That has ended now. So we actually missed some miserable days here on the coast; this little house does not have AC (most houses here do not).

My photo is a collage of today’s roadtrip. Starting in the upper right with the train bridge in Ventura, then the freeway signs announcing our direction as we leave Ventura and then see in the next frame the ocean, all the RVs parked in the roadside camping, the double train tracks, the beautiful field of vegetation growing, the highway we are on, and considerably north of us Santa Barbara, the last frame on the top left is the tunnel through the rocks as we drive away from the coast and toward Buellton.

This has been a very good Saturday. We’ll be here for 8 to 10 nights (we need to decide whether to return to SoCal before or after Labor Day). But mostly we just plan to relax and enjoy the coast.

From Cayucos
on California’s Central Coast,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi