Smack dab in the middle of pretty

When the ranger at Rancho Oso came by this morning I told him that it seems the longer we do this the slower we are at getting departed.  When the kids were small we used to be up and on the road first thing in the morning so that we could be in camp in the early afternoon.  We carried that pattern over into our travels but lately it seems like we are lucky if we are mobile by noon.

Fortunately we didn’t have far to go today.  We moved about 20 miles south of Santa Barbara to a spot where they more or less park on the side of the highway next to the ocean.  I think they call it a state park but its really just a wide spot in the highway where they rent out 45’ of asphalt for $25 per night.  And that’s exactly all you get – 45’ of blacktop – no

water, no sewer and no electric, nothing but a whole bunch of pretty.  So we won’t be staying long but it’s been pretty nice nevertheless.

We’ll let the weather in the morning make our plans for us.  If the sun is shining then it’s pretty nice here and we’ll likely spend another night.  If it’s a grey day then it’s still none too warm here on the coast and we’ll likely get heading east.  We’re hoping that once we get on the Arizona desert we’ll find the 70+ degree temperatures that we have been missing lately.

Tonight I couldn’t resist taking a bunch of cheesy sunset photos.  The sky looked promising while we were eating supper and we weren’t disappointed.  There’s a railway embankment on the other side of the highway so I was able to climb up onto the tracks to get some elevation but I had to look sharp because Amtrak comes through here regularly and rapidly.  The guy coming from the south was watching out for idiot tourists but about 5 minutes later there was a train from the north that just went flying by me.

We had dolphins to watch while we were eating supper.  They had something that they liked right in front of where we are parked – I assume there were some fish there that they kept circling back for.  Then as quickly as they arrived they were gone.  Marilyn is still watching for a whale but I’m not holding my breath.