Laundry does not go on vacation!

I am very fortunate to have a nice washer and dryer on the bus. Most campers spend many hours in the campground Laundromat. But I do have to wash at least one load of clothes, usually more, every single day or I get behind. Once a week I wash sheets. The great thing though is that we have so few clothes and the bus is so compact that there is much more gratification in washing here than at home! Tomorrow we only have about a four-hour drive to San Francisco and this bus will need some serious cleaning. There is sand from one end of the bus to the other!

Back at the Bus...

Here, I am eating my lemon ice-cream (I made a triple batch!) while watching the cookies bake, and Connor and Lacy are eating them!

Whale Sightings!

After our whale watching adventure yesterday, we all know how to look for the whales that are migrating through these waters right now. On our way up the coast, we spotted four whales all together. On our way back, as you see here, we spotted two more. It was very exciting to see their spouts blowing high and their massive bodies surfacing on the water! Although what we saw yesterday were Hump Back Whales, these today should be the Gray Whales that are susposed to be here now.

Nepenthe Restaurant

This is an incredible, hippie-run restaurant that Ted and I discovered about 15 years ago (before kids). We sat there, then, overlooking the sea dreaming that someday we would bring our children here to see it. Well, here we are! The Nepenthe has been serving for well over 50 years and the 3rd generation of the same family is running it today. The building was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and is a work of art in and of itself. The tiered architecture overlooks the Pacific Ocean and has a beautiful view of the winding roads leading to Big Sur.

A Hike to the Ocean

We found this neat little State Park along the road where we pulled off. Lacy immediately climbed a tree and Connor stayed below to spot her. Evan wanted to take a trail he saw so I followed him. You need to understand that we started out on our way to church this morning. Just as we were leaving, a new spot opened up in the park that we had to take because we were on a 30 amp spot and our rig needed 50 amps. Bottom line is we missed church because we had to move the bus. I packed other shoes but at the moment we were headed to lunch so I did not change. Before I knew it, Evan had led me down a steep hill that goes all the way down to the ocean...in my heels! You also see in this picture Ted carving our names in a fence with Lacy. That seems to be a tradition for this particular fence and maybe our kids will bring our grand children to see it someday!

Elephant Seals

Our next stop today was a visit to an amazing location along the beach where Elephant Seals began making their home a few years ago. There were hundreds of them right there within reach; even beside the road. Those black things that look like rocks behind us are actually huge seals! It is too bad this is not a 3-D Blog, because you just can't see the smell in this picture. The tide washes the dead ones to the back which happens to be right where we were standing. The naturalists who were there answering questions said that there have been an unusual number of deaths of the seals this year. We can attest to that from the number of STINKING carcasses before us! They suspect a crazy bull seal has gone mad and started a killing spree or the recent storm drowned them(yes,the pups can't swim at first). What was very disturbing to the kids was a mother seal that was dead lying next to its little baby that was alive and cuddled up next to it. That made a profound impact on them.

Hearst Castle

Today, we are driving up the PCH Hwy 1 to Big Sir. This is about a two hour drive, each way, up the Pacific Coast. It is a beautiful drive of switchbacks and hairpin turns all while cliffs with tumbling rocks are on one side and sheer drops on the other. This is a drive that would be impossible to do in the bus. Our first stop was the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. You can see it atop the hill over our shoulders. We watched a video about the castle before we came so the kids were all caught up on the history. It really is an amazing place with breathtaking views of the ocean.

Pismo Beach RV Resort

We have really enjoyed being here at Pismo Beach. You can see over our shoulders the main recreation area for this park. It has a store that sells local produce, an arcade the kids love, putt putt golf, a heated pool and a lookout station that you can sit in out of the wind to watch the surf. We would definitely come here again.