Life in the SLO Lane

We arrived in San Luis Obispo, California, on Saturday, April 22nd, to hang out for a bit with the California Drazsnzaks (aka Michael’s brother, Jacques, Jacques’ wife, Allison, and their two daughters, India and Phoebe).

We’ve been here a couple of times before and enjoyed this area immensely. There’s always something fun to do – let’s count the ways, shall we?

1. Farmer’s Markets

While there are only (?!) three farmer’s markets each week in San Luis Obispo itself, according to SanLuisObispoVacations.com within San Luis Obispo county there is at least one farmer’s market every single day of the week. How cool is that?

We started off with the legendary Thursday night market in downtown SLO. This one has it all: local produce, locally made products, live entertainment, and BBQ.

We went to the Thursday night market for a jar of local honey, some vegetables, and then found some excellent gyros and falalfel from a place called Oasis. Yummy!

We meant to go to the Saturday morning market over on Madonna Road, but that one closes at 10:45 and we didn’t make it. Arroyo Grande to the rescue! AG is the next town over from SLO, and their Saturday farmer’s market runs from noon-2:30.

This one is on the small side – only two blocks long, but the produce in Arroyo Grande did not disappoint.

I know that we’re in California and all, but I just couldn’t help but make the observation that in Colorado, we don’t get produce like this until at least June. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen English peas at the Longmont farmer’s market.

 

We saw enough chickens to make me think of Key West,

 

 

 

 

 

and everyone enjoyed this little suspension bridge.

 

 

 

2. Cool restaurants

I did find something completely new and different in SLO: Blast 85 Taproom. It’s a bar and restaurant, which isn’t all that unusual… but I’ve never seen beer served this way before.

There are over 35 beers on tap here – and you get to serve yourself. If you want to try something new, just pour yourself a couple of ounces. No problem!  Here’s how it works: when you check in with the bartender, she takes a look at your ID and your credit card, and gives you something they call the Smart Beer Wristband. There’s a chip in the wristband that keeps track of what you pour, as well as how much. You pay for it all when you’re ready to go. I had never heard of this concept before. Genius! The bartenders are on hand if you have questions, but there is a screen above each tap handle with information about each beer.

Did I use the word genius already?

3. Theater

Jacques and Ali gave us a special treat, getting extra tickets so that we could join the family for PCPA’s performance of the musical Lend Me a Tenor down in Santa Maria.

The performance was brilliant and I was a bit surprised. The central coast of California seems a little isolated, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Santa Maria is the biggest town at about 100,000 people. (SLO itself is around 65,000). I just didn’t expect actors and theater people to flock to the area. Part of the reason, I think, is the PCPA – the Pacific Conservatory Theater.

It’s part of Hancock Community College, and through one of their unique programs students can study “Career and Technical Education,” working right alongside professional actors and resident artists. How cool is that?

Ali also told me that Hancock works closely with California’s other colleges and universities – so that classes taken there (here’s a list of academic departments) will actually transfer towards a Bachelor’s degree.

How cool is that?

4. Morro Bay

Morro Bay is fondly referred to as Three Stacks and a Rock in reference to the two main features there (besides the bay itself).

The Morro Bay Power Plant was built in the early 1950’s and shut down in 2014. It hasn’t been decommissioned and sits empty on about 100 acres of prime real estate. The New York Times wrote a great article about it – you can read it here.

We rented kayaks for a paddle around the bay, which was amazing. We saw sea lions (from a distance) and sea otters (from a greater distance) and even a manta ray. After a couple hours we were a little tired and hungry, and headed over to a place called Dockside #2 for lunch. Michael went for fish & chips, I had the fish tacos, and we enjoyed the live music, which was a guy and his banjo. He played mostly folk songs although he did take requests. He reminded me a bit of my friend Kevin Slick in that he seemed to know every song.

The third time he asked if there were any requests I decided to test his bluegrass chops. I asked for Foggy Mountain Breakdown. This song is generally known as the Bluegrass National Anthem (you can listen to it here), and to my delight he did a pretty good job!

Not as good as David Okay Patton, of course. (Happy birthday, Dave!)

With full bellies we went for a little stroll around Morro Bay. It’s a pretty town, although at this point we’ve been to so many tourist towns that they all kinda look the same: saltwater taffy, T-shirts, jewelry, a gallery or two. We did get to see my favorite car of all time, though.

We walked near the docks for a bit…

And saw a few things bobbing in the water nearby.

Sea otters! And let me tell you, they were adorable.

We’ve barely scratched the surface on California’s central coast. But so far it’s been pretty awesome.