California Coast Trip May 2009
This is a story about a one week trip up the California Coast. It was planned by six women, I, Kathy Brocki, Jean Brennecke, Judy Amiguet, Kay Zearfoss, Betty Giannos and Vi Page. We all play golf together at El Prado Golf Course in Chino Hills California. When putting our plan together two of the women Jean Brennecke and Judy Amiguet have a good friend, Scott and Anne, from their teaching years in our local area that has a future retirement home in Morro Bay. This friend offered his home to us for a week, free of charge. Jean and Judy have a condo on a golf course in Indio California that they offered in exchange. Our plan was taking shape and we set the date, May 3rd thru May 9th.
Now that we had a place to stay we needed to make some golf and sightseeing plans. We have a friend who lives in Morro Bay that used to play at El Prado a few years back, Pat Garmon, who we called to help us decide which golf courses we should play. We thought three or four golf days would be good and that would leave a few days to do some sightseeing. Each of us decided to have a dinner night that we would partner and prepare a meal so we would not have to eat all our meals out.
Once all our plans were in order and the day had arrived to leave on our trip. We were on our way heading up the coast in two cars, Jean’s Lexus and Betty’s Cadillac. Kay and Judy road with Betty and Vi, Jean and I were in Jean’s car. We kept in contact along the way by cell phone. About 11:00 AM we started talking about where we wanted to eat lunch. In our car we wanted Anderson’s Pea Soup, but the girls in the other car didn’t. Well, we ended up in a Costco eating hot dogs, pizza and turkey wraps. While in Costco we bought two cooked chickens for Betty’s dinner night.
Upon our arrival in Morro Bay, we unpacked and selected our sleeping arrangements.
The home is a lovely single story 3 bed 2 bath two blocks from the beach and approx 1 ½ mi from the famous Morro Bay Rock. Scott and Anne bought the house a few years ago and have completely remodeled it. It is very light and bright with an ocean theme.
After we got all situated Kay, Vi and I went for a walk to the beach. A rather long walk on the sand to the water (low tide). We walked for awhile and Vi and Kay wanted to continue and I decided to go back to the house. There were very few people on the beach. We saw some people riding horses on the sand very close to the water. About a hour later Kay and Vi called and wanted to be picked up at Spencer’s Market on Main St. about ½ mi from the house. They talked about the walk and Vi said she has never walked so far in her life.
A friend of ours, Pat Garmon, as I mentioned before, who was a member of El Prado several years ago and now lives in Morro Bay, made all our golf reservations for the week. Pat came over for dinner on our first night. It was Vi’s night for dinner and she prepared a delightful Chinese Chicken Salad and homemade egg rolls.
We cleaned the kitchen up and played Texas Hold’em after failing at Tripoly. Baths and Showers were taken and we headed for bed between 10 and 11 PM.
Back at the house we cleaned up and went to dinner at a place Pat recommended called the Galley on the Embarcardo which is very close to the “Rock”. Pat was unable to join us but she told the restaurant to treat us good and they did. Before dinner we walked around the shops and some bought gifts and souvenirs. Once back at the house we played cards and laughed a lot about our days adventures.
On Tuesday morning we were up ate and out the door about the same time as yesterday. We headed for our 2nd round of golf at Avila Resort in Avila Beach, very near Los Osos. This course is much different than Dairy Creek as it is right on the beach with a few holes with ocean views. Very green with lots of trees and several holes that you must hit over water. Same slope rating 121 as Dairy Creek. For the record our scores were Kathy 97, Vi 115, Judy 112, Kay 137, Jean 112, Betty 123 and Pat 110.
After golf we came back to the house to clean up and then go meet Pat and her daughter Jill at La Palapas Mexican Restaurant in Los Osos for Cinch de Mayo. The restaurant was quite empty when we arrived but shortly filled up. Had a great time and again we laughed a lot.
Arrived back at the house about 8:30 or 9:00 pm a little worn out from all the activity we had so we got ready for bed. Kay and Betty watched TV NCIS and Jean watched the Dodgers win their 12th straight game. Judy, Vi and I played a card game called GOLF and after the ball game Jean joined us.
On Wednesday we took our time getting ready as we had no golf planned for today. Taking two cars again as always, Jeans and Betty’s we headed up the coast to see the Elephant Seals in a viewing point at the ocean a few miles north of San Simeon and Hearst Castle. This was fantastic to see and we took lots of pictures. There was a Docent there and we went over to listen to her talk about the seals. She gave us a lot of info about the females, males and pups. There was this sea gull posing for me so I took a picture and it turned out so good that I might want to enter it in the Orange District Fine Art Contest next spring.
Driving farther up the coast we stopped at Ragged Point. There is an Inn, restaurant, gift shop and beautiful gardens. There is a walking trail that takes you out to the edge of the point with awesome views of the ocean. I took several pictures. From here we headed back down the coast thinking about where we wanted to have lunch. We went into the small town of Cambria and found this wonderful restaurant, Linns, where we all had about the best meal of our whole trip. Jean needed to mail some important papers and the Post Office was just across the street and a few of us went and bought some Forever Stamps as postage was to go up on the 11th, so we took care of some business while in Cambria. Our waiter Aaron, at Linns was very nice and told us of some Wineries’ he thought we would enjoy. So now we were off to do some Wine Tasting. We ended up only visiting two Wineries’, Denner and Meridian. Denner was way too expensive and Meridian was very reasonable. The drive from Denner to Meridian took us about half way to Bakersfield. The views at Meridian were very nice and we enjoyed ourselves. We didn’t know the best way to get back to Morro Bay so we called Pat who directed us to the Hwy and it was a simple ride back.
Betty and Judy prepared us a Chicken and Pasta dinner with a delicious salad that I think all came from Costco. Some of us played cards again and that night the Dodgers broke the record by winning 13 games in a row.
Thursday tee time was not until 11:00 am so we took our time getting ready. Judy left very early to go get her vest she left at Avila on Tuesday. It was kind of cold and foggy this day and remained so for most of the day. We still enjoyed playing Morro Bay. Saw a Turkey family with little ones but didn’t get a picture because they went into the forest before I could get my camera ready. Back home it was Jean and my turn to prepare dinner. We were doing spaghetti and meatballs with a salad and garlic bread. Jean had cooked the meatballs in the morning and this made it so easy to get everything together. Some rested and some went for a walk as we had a few hours before dinner so Jean and Judy called Pat Garmon’s sister, Barbara, who lives just a few blocks away but across the Hwy who is a watercolor artist and had a Gallery in San Clemente. She moved to Morro Bay as she was having eye problems and was declared legally blind and to be near her family. She was home so they went to visit her and were so excited about their visit with her that they came back to get Vi and me to go meet her and see some of her art work. I took a picture of her kitchen cabinets in which she painted the front to show what was inside. It was so good that Vi thought she used prints and varnished over them. Her website is www.barbaralappwatercolors.com just for the record.
We came back and prepared dinner which was delightful.
I made a tee time at Morro Bay for Friday because we enjoyed it so much and because the weather was predicted to be sunny and warm for Friday.
Kathy...I loved looking at your photos...you're going to do well on your blog..
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