Left home at 4:30 on a Wednesday morning to bypass SF and San Jose rush hour traffic on my way south on 101 to Los Olivos, just beyond Santa Maria. Highway 101 is so much easier on my 1994 Volvo than Highway 5 (in gray) because on the travel speed is a temperate 65, not the 85 mph demanded on the 5.
As I approached Salinas, daylight was just cresting above the Gabilan mountains to the east, a silver ribbon outlining the gray ridge, then trimmed by overhead rows of gray clouds of varying stripes. The Coastal mountains on the right grew brighter as the sun rose and I pulled into Salinas to enjoy breakfast at Dudley’s.
Salinas at Daybreak
After breakfast I walked around for a few blocks and admired the creativity of the Hallowe’en decorations in a downtown alley.
At 10 am there was no one in my lane for as far and the eye could see, forward or backward. The drive was beautiful and meditative, and around noon I stopped in Santa Margarita, high in the mountains and still shrouded in fog, even though it is just 10 miles straight uphill from San Luis Obispo. At about 3 pm I met up with my friends at the VRBO in Los Olivos and we visited some of the shops and wine tasting rooms.
Rocking my Moroccan Bag in Downtown Los Olivos Which is Three Blocks Long
I cooked up a quiche for our first night, and on our second and final night we visited restaurant Bar le Côté.
At Bar Le Côté: Regina, Jane, and Moi
Shopping at Garden Supply in Los Olivos
We hadn’t seen each other in ten years, since the 50th high school reunion that we organized. It was such a pleasure to catch up and to fill in the blanks about how we got to where we were. They spoke about what they felt when they visited my house when we were in high school.
Jane: your mother seemed like a child.
Regina: your father was handsome but very scary. Manipulative.
It was such a relief to feel seen and understood. Because I departed at 10 am, the Friday afternoon trip took seven and a half hours but I enjoyed digesting all the insights and camaraderie.
Great trip.
Mary Rose picked me up at Orlando airport on Sunday morning, the day after my birthday. I had flown all night, more than 2,700 miles, so that I could meet Lily’s “parents” before they left on a cruise with several other of Mary Rose’s friends. About a month earlier, MR realized that she wanted all the dogs to be cared for but she could manage only three and there were four who needed looking after, so she sent an Email invitation to several siblings. I was the one who said yes and spent about $1,000 on r/t air tickets for the chance to spend two weeks at The Villages at Lily’s residence, with the use of a golf cart thrown in. Peggy sweetened the pot with a birthday gift of $500 to defray some of the costs, and the folks whose house and dog I was taking care of said they would offer some payment.
Lily got lots of walks: morning, afternoon, and I was surprised to discover I needed a flashlight at night because there are no street lights! She would get an early outing, breakfast, then a long walk, often all the way around the lake.
The drive to Esalen from Moss Landing was estimated at 90 minutes, but it was Labor Day and very hot, even for the beach. I stopped for a hike at Soberanes Canyon in Garrapata State Park.