January, 2014

San Luis Obispo. Iconic California and home when we ...eh...are home (!)

On the road again...

We were on a 3 week road trip this past month. It was time to make the rounds to visit the kids and grand kids all over the North West, so we hopped into our pick up and drove the equivalent of going from Los Angeles to Bangor Maine. Our first stop was in Kelso, Washington where we spent several days over Christmas with Cassie and husband Steve, his parents Joel and Cathy and of course the star of the event, baby Ryan. Steve was recently promoted to head chef at the restaurant he works at while Cassie continues with her ASL (American Sign Language) classes. We are proud of them both.

No sooner had we left that the little man developed a case of RSV (a respiratory virus) causing him to spend a few days in the hospital, on and off, and scaring the living daylights out of us all with his labored breathing.  Ready to fly back up on a moments notice should the need arise, it seems that he is not out of the woods yet but doing marginally better.

Next up was making our way to Sandpoint Idaho to spend several days with #1 son Wesley and his significant other, Caitland. He was off for the week from working at his pharmaceutical manufacturing plant where he was recently promoted as a quality control inspector so we got to hang out together and get to know his girl also. What a sweetie! 

Speaking of promotions, I was also. I have gone from 'do nothing' to 'do little'. So now I do little or nothing.

Amy with James Wyatt

We drove back to the coast to the San Juan Islands to visit daughter Amy and Vance, all the kidlets and the newest addition to the family, James Wyatt. We celebrated New Years with their family and were invited to a monster truck jam. 

It was a first for Janice and I  and we got to see some of the craziest and dangerous extreme suicidal motorcycle jumps ever as seen in the short video sample above, then bunches of Monster trucks crushing cars, rolling over and jumping dirt mounds.

I have often told my grand children that they drive me to drink. This time 5 year old  Megan Grace told me I make her climb a wall.

Helping Vance drywall the laundry room

Dodging Christopher having the time of his life playing "let's run over grand pa"

Finally, we started the 3 day drive home via a required visit to The City. (The "City" is what Californians often call San Francisco, as if there is no other really worthy of the name). The irony did not escape us as we left 3 weeks of rain, cold, fog and clouds to arrive in the city on a glorious sunny 70 degree (21 c) day. In fact while there, a local sports bar had 2 snow machines running on its roof, showering pedestrians below. Inside, they added more ice to the drinks and left their freezer running full blast with the door wide open.

Our beloved San Francisco

Why? Because their beloved San Francisco 49ers were playing the Green Bay Packers in a raging Wisconsin snow storm and they wanted them to know that they "felt their pain" and were in solidarity with them. It should go without saying that our 49ers hammered their Packers.

We have bragging rights!

It would be depressing to live somewhere if there was absolutely nothing to brag about. Here we do, and we are as reticent to tell you about it as you are likely to find a bashful pole dancer. There is little point in not making the most of it and not beating our own drum so... drum roll please.....

Places that you have never heard of like our sleepy little town of San Luis Obispo, are not where you would expect to find 'cutting edge' anything. But you would be wrong. From medicine to wine, SLO as we locals call it is no slouch. If you were needing a medical MRI for instance, you could get one anywhere in the country. But if you wanted an ultra high end field MRI with many times the resolution of your facility's machine, you would have to find the very latest Siemens Magnetom Skyra 3T ultra high field MRI. Woah! How's that for a mouthful?

It is the only 'open bore' MRI in existence with an oversized opening, which is a godsend for the claustrophobic. To find one you could check with any of the major hospitals or medical centers like the Mayo clinic or the John Hopkins hospital, the Cleveland center, Mount Sinai, Stanford, or even the UCLA medical center.

Unfortunately, you would be out of luck as there are only 3 of these devices in all of the USA. One in Virginia, one in Oregon and one right here in San Luis Obispo California. So how did I become such a smarty pants and learn about this? Well, I went for a ride in it this morning. Then again, if you are not shopping for an MRI, why would you care?

We also have a short video below that is on our web site that we feel is worth watching that touches on the high points of our area. Oprah Winfrey and ABC News describes it as the "Happiest Place on Earth". Dateline NBC rates it as the "Top Place In the World" while The Los Angeles Times calls it the "Favorite Vacation Spot". Travel and Leisure magazine readers voted San Luis Obispo the 3rd best college town in America. (#1 anywhere West of Virginia) and for lushes, there are more than 25 wineries within a 20-minute drive of our front door. 

 

See the video here

Speaking of wineries, while Napa valley wines are well known, wine production in nearby Paso Robles dates to the days of the Spanish missionaries, who planted the first vineyards at Mission San Miguel Archangel in the 1700's. European settlers followed, bringing with them their rich heritage of European wine making tradition.  Commercial wine making began in the late 1870's.

Paso Robles alone is now home to more than 200 wineries and 617,000 vineyard acres focusing on premium wine production and it is only one of several wine growing regions in our immediate area. The distinct micro climates and diverse soils combined with long warm growing seasons and cooling marine breezes from the nearby Pacific Ocean make growing conditions ideal for the production of our world-class wines.

Cabernet Sauvignon remains the leading variety, accounting for over a third of that region's acreage. Due to the intense varietal character of the wine grapes grown, it consistently garners national and international gold medals. As a result of the unique combination of inland heating and marine influence from the Pacific Ocean, we have the highest day/night temperature variance of any viticultural area of the United States, resulting in an unmatched intensity of flavor.

The diverse micro climates of the region provide ideal growing conditions for a wide variety of grapes: Pinot Noir and Zinfandel in the cooler areas; Rhone varietals, including Syrah, in the higher elevations, and Bordeaux varietals, including Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, in the warmest areas. Our winemakers utilize the full palette of this amazing potential to create wines among the finest in the world. No, this is not just bluster.

The venerable wine magazine, Wine Spectator, had its annual soirée in New York City spotlighting 264 of the best wines in the world. There, Paso Robles winemaker, Justin Smith of Saxum, took home the honor of Best Wine... Not best wine of the weekend, not best wine of San Luis Obispo County or the state of California or the USA for that matter, but rather, out of 15,000 wines reviewed from all over the world, Saxum James Berry Vineyard 2007 was rated the best wine on the planet...

This 'California wines are among the best in the world' thing is not new. In 1976, nine French wine experts in a blind taste test comparing California and French wine awarded first prize, to their own shock, to two bottles of California wines. The so called 'Judgement of Paris' led to the boom in California wineries from 330 in 1975 to 3,754 in 2012. The kicker was that the French thru down the gauntlet and demanded a rematch 10 years later....with the same outcome.

Our poor French friends are beside themselves.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch...

Being gone for 3 weeks limited what we could do around the house but we did finish our infamous roofing project and did a little more landscaping. We will have a little show-and-tell next month. The clock is ticking and we are on the downward slide for our our time here before we cast off for Europe again next month. We will wrap up a few odds and ends before we pull the plug for the season.

This months  riddle

What is so special about this building?
 The answer is at the bottom of the page

Better them than us!

Meanwhile, we got the pic below from friends in the great white north of Canada where our boats, car  and jet skis are stored for the winter near the island.

...How our summer toys hibernate in the winter

And the answer to the riddle is...

Yet another first for our San Luis Obispo, the photo is of the remains of the very first motel in the world. Created in 1925 and originally know as the Milestone M0-Tel (Now the Motel Inn). With automobile travel times between Los Angeles and San Francisco being two days at the time, San Luis Obispo was the half way mark and a convenient stop off point. A room for the night would set you back a whole $1.25