Paso Robles

Crossing the California border and heading toward home, it occurred to us that ever since the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana, we had seen very few trees.  From Texas, through New Mexico and Arizona and even eastern California, the terrain had been flat and mostly ugly, to our eyes at least, with bare dirt and dormant grasses and scrub brush and not much else, except for occasional hills and small mountains in the distance. 
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We stayed one night at a campground in Bakersfield.  The driver of the motorhome parked next to us was a middle-aged black man.  Nancy, having recently spent a lot of time in the South, walked over and said to him, "I don't think we've seen a single colored person in an RV before, our whole trip!"

 Our 41st wedding anniversary was December 22, and we wanted to celebrate it in an area that we consider special - Paso Robles, which has a charming downtown, lots of fine restaurants, and is the fastest growing wine region in the country, I'm told.  We had great crabcakes for lunch at Cass Winery, did wine tastings at a couple of the 150 wineries in Paso Robles, and our anniversary dinner was at Robert's, a wonderful restaurant in the downtown area.  Nancy is a treasure in my eyes, and I consider myself damned lucky to have found her all those years ago.  Spending three and a half months in an RV will test a marriage, and ours made the honor roll.

The next morning, as we prepared to leave on the last leg of our journey, back to our home in Ben Lomond, I found the water hose which runs from the spigot to our motorhome's water supply inlet frozen solid.  I'd forgotten that California does get cold sometimes. 

After the flat mostly desert landscape of the south central US, the rolling hills and vineyards around Paso Robles were very attractive, and when we approached and then turned onto Hwy 1 at Moss Landing, with its lush trees and views of the ocean and nearby mountains, we were reminded of just how beautiful California is.  Our state may be destitute, but at least it looks good.  And that's what's important, right?