Central Coast California – part 2

When camping, we tend to wake up earlier than at home, so trying to take a pre-breakfast walk every morning seemed like a good idea. Most people aren’t out and about yet and the sun isn’t hot, so why not stretch our legs and work up an appetite? Despite the trek that our “stroll” to Vernal Falls turned out to be, we are apparently optimists, so we tightened our shoelaces and set off across the hills.

The only picture taken along the "Tick Trail"

At first it was pleasant, with hummingbirds darting around us, deer and horses grazing on a distant hill, vultures lining up along a fence. In retrospect, that last one seems like it should have been a warning. The hilltop trail led slowly down to a marshy section, then back up through a cool pine forest. All was well until we discovered the first tick.

Now, let me just say that I am wildly arachnophobic, but I don’t hate spiders. I find most bugs fascinating, or at least mildly interesting, and I don’t even mind cockroaches. However, I HATE ticks. There is nothing that gives me the willies more than thinking I might have a tick on or near me, and I’ve walked through a forest in Australia that warned about not pausing on the trail in case leaches crawled onto your legs.

Somehow in the course of our high-stepping through the grass to get as far down the path as quickly as possible, we missed the turn-off back to the campground, and ended up in someone’s back yard. Rather than risk going back along the tick trail for any length of time, we kept going out to the highway, and walked nearly a mile in what was now the blazing sun along the shoulder. What should have been less than two miles turned into a nearly four mile hike, and I refuse to leave the RV again without having at least a snack first.

After stripping down and leaving our clothes outside (good thing for an empty campground!) we collected ourselves and left for our scheduled tour at Hearst Castle.

Looking toward Pismo Beach Pier from the dunes

Now, since I’m so behind, we’re going to zoom ahead a bit. We stayed the next night at Montaña de Oro, then found a spot at the North Beach campground in Pismo Beach. This put us a few blocks away from our old house and right in the middle of our old neighborhood. The next few days were a greatest hits tour of favorite restaurants, activities like the farmer’s market and soaking at Avila Hot Springs, and long walks on the beach and pier. It was good to be back and got us thinking about spending more time there in the future. Slightly grungy beach town seems to suit us.