Day 21

Monday 21st May 2007<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Today was the first day of the holiday that we had to be anywhere, so we checked out of our motel, this time having breakfast at a local diner.  This Super 8 did not actually do breakfast in the motel but they gave you vouchers which you could use at this diner – Carrows .

 

Fortified with breakfast we then set off for the 200 mile or so drive to Paso Robles.  Passing through yet more bleak Mojave Desert en route to Bakersfield and stopping briefly at Harper Dry Lake to look from some promised “Watchable Wildlife” but it was already to hot and dry to host any passing waders, so this was a complete Bunbury.  Bakersfield itself is a big town of about 350,000 inhabitants but spread over many more square miles than such a town in England would be.  Connie took us through it with little trouble and spat us out on to the I-5 north, up the flat Central Valley, which in places was still semi-desert, in others had been converted into lush cropland, with our first sightings of grapevines and fruit orchards and groves.  We turned off onto CA46 at Lost Hills and proceeded sedately to cross the flat-bottomed valley, past an oilfield, which looked more like a pump-farm and then up through the Tehachapi Hills, complete with wind-farm, and down into Paso Robles, where Connie directed us faultlessly to Mr Bill’s house.  As we had arrived early, and had promised Bill that we would already have fed and watered ourselves when we arrived, we then explored the local road to Atascadero, where we drove up and down El Camino Real till we found a Thai restaurant with cars in its car park.

 

After our excellent meal, we arrived at our destination in Paso Robles, to be greeted by Bill and his daughter Olivia, and later by his wife Colleen.  A happy evening passed, reliving the adventures of our journey so far, and with plentiful suggestions for our future adventures whilst in California.  We also watched some video of a comedian that Bill had recommended, Bill Maher, who was quite amusing and fairly outrageous about American politics.  Bill also showed us his extensive music collection and its various hidey holes throughout the house.  If I thought Bob’s collection was extensive, then it is minute compared to the collection here.