In spite of the fact that it was windy and chilly yesterday, we just couldn’t stay inside when we were this close to a beach. We started out by dropping off bundles of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal at some of the local RV parks between Oceano and Pismo Beach. They sure cram a lot of RVs into small spaces here on the central California coast, where land is at a premium!

Then we spent some time walking out on the Pismo Beach pier, stopping to watch surfers trying to catch just the right wave. Those kids have more energy than common sense! That water sure looked cold!

Further out the pier, there were a few folks fishing. No license is required, and you can rent a rod and tackle from a vendor on the pier.

As much as we enjoyed the pier, the cold wind drove us off after a half hour or so. We did some browsing at the shops along the waterfront, then drove to a used book store in Grover Beach, where the pickings were slim.

Blog reader Levonne Gaddy had suggested we try Mama’s Meatball, a block or two from the Elks lodge campground, for pizza, so we stopped there and it was very good. The crust was super thin, but the blend of cheeses was delicious.

The Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area is within walking distance of the Elks campground, but we chose to take the van and stay out of the wind. We parked near the entrance to the fee area and spent the afternoon watching all of the activity on the beach. We love people watching, and a day at the beach can be more entertaining than an afternoon matinee.

This is one of the few places where you can drive on the beach, and people come here from hundreds of miles away to drive 4x4s, ATVs, motorcycles, and even family cars on the sand.

If you drive on the hard packed sand, you are usually okay, but if you get stuck (and a lot of people do), the local tow trucks are equipped to pull you out, for a price.

Some folks get carried away having fun and get stupid instead. This is the end result when that happens. Whoever was in the cab of this truck must have had a terrible headache, if not worse.

You can even camp on the beach, and though we would not have considered bringing our Winnebago out there, we saw a lot of RVs coming and going.

If you get your fifth wheel or motorhome stuck here, you’re really stuck!

Some people choose to get back to the basics when it comes to horsepower. These may not be the most comfortable ride on the beach,  don’t at least they get stuck very often.

We also watched windsurfers zipping up and down just offshore. It must take a lot of arm strength to hold onto those things!

Some of the acrobatics they were doing were fascinating!

We returned to the Oceano Elks campground about 7:30 p.m., and the place had really filled up while we were gone! I don’t know how they squeeze so many RVs into such a small campground, but like I said, space is at a premium on the coast.

We spent the rest of the evening inside, not doing much of anything. It was a wonderful, relaxing day, in spite of the wind and cold, and we are feeling more relaxed than we have in months. We really needed this time. We love our family and friends, and we cherish being with them. But sometimes we just have to have some “us” time, away from everybody. It’s our special reward to ourselves.

Bad Nick has been lazy lately, and we haven’t heard much from him. But yesterday while we were out playing beach bums, he was at the computer posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled What About Them? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – The things that come to those who wait may be the things left by those who got there first.

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I think the old Willy Nelson song with the above title must be the theme song for fulltime RVers, and I bet a lot of us hum or sing it to ourselves when we pull out of a campground. It sure brought a smile to my face to do so yesterday morning!

It was 19 degrees at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington when I fired up the Winnebago and pulled out of our campsite. After a quick stop at the dump station to empty our holding tanks, we were on the road by 9:15 a.m. We usually wait until rush hour is over before we leave in the morning because we can’t see any reason to get out there with all the commuters on their way to work.

We took the Bluegrass Parkway southwest 90 miles to Elizabethtown, where we got onto Interstate 65. All along the way the rock faces, where the route was carved through the mountains, were covered with long icicles that looked like stalactites found in Kentucky’s many caves in this region. They call this area Cave Country, and it’s one of our favorite places, but not this time of year. We’ll be back sometime when it’s warm.

As we traveled south, eighteen wheelers and RVs going by us from places further north occasionally showered the highway with great sheets of snow and ice that slid off their roofs and exploded into white bursts as they hit the pavement. I guess we’re not the only ones in a hurry to get out of the cold!

I wrote about how much I hate driving through Nashville when I reported on our trip north, and several people suggested we take the State Route 155, known as the Briley Parkway, as a bypass. We had been on this stretch of road several years ago while it was under construction and were faced with long delays. This time around there was no construction, and though there was a lot of traffic, it moved along pretty well as we skirted the east side of Music City, passing by the Grand Ole Opry, where I imagine Willy Nelson has sung On The Road Again.

We made good time as we scooted across Tennessee, then crossed into Alabama. Rain had been predicted for much of our route south, and a few miles north of Birmingham it began to sprinkle, then picked up to a steady shower. Roadways are most dangerous just after it begins to rain, because all of the oil and road film gets wet and very slippery until it rains enough to wash it away. This is a very dangerous time to be using either a Jake brake or cruise control. We slowed down to a safe speed on the wet road and continued into Birmingham, another city I really don’t like driving through. There was a lot of road construction, with narrow twisting lanes, and the drivers all seemed to be in a hurry to be the first one to the accident.

The sky had been gloomy since we left Nashville, and as the afternoon wore on, it got darker and darker. By the time we were approaching Montgomery, it was pouring rain and visibility was dropping fast. Time to get off the highway. We pulled into the Prattville Moose Lodge, about ten miles north of Montgomery, and just a mile off the Interstate.

The lodge has a small campground for traveling Moose members, with a dozen sites with water and 30 amp electric hookups. We stayed here once before, in dry weather, but I wanted to test the dirt RV parking area before we pulled into it with our heavy motorhome. It was pretty saturated, and we decided instead to pull around behind the lodge and park on the edge of the driveway. There are no hookups back here, but that’s not a problem for us, with our Onan generator and fresh water holding tank.

We had covered 490 miles, and that was more than enough for one day. It’s chilly here, about 42 degrees overnight. But since that was about twice what we had the night before, and four times what we faced in Elkhart, nobody in our coach was complaining!

Today we have an easy run of about 185 miles to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV Park in Summerdale. It will be nice to be back with our extended family of RVers for a while.

Thought For The Day – Love your neighbor, but do not pull down your fence.

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