Time To Move On (For Real This Time)

We returned to San Luis Obispo from the Yosemite area right before Memorial Day weekend. I feel the need to mention we found a great little taco place in Paso Robles, called Tortilla Town. The menu is a little small – kind of like the place itself, which has maybe 4 booths inside. But the tacos and gorditas are delicious. Whenever a customer asks for guacamole, the ladies behind the counter all shout “Guac-ah-mole-AAAAYYYYY!”

So if you ever find yourself in Paso Robles, California, get to Tortilla Town (it’s just west of the the intersection of Highways 101 and 41), and make sure you add guacamole to your order.

Anyway. Things have settled down a bit – for everyone. My father in law has been moved into a skilled nursing facility, and there’s no need for Michael and I to fly back to Fayetteville. It was good that we were in SLO, though, as there were lots of phone calls back and forth over the course of the past two weeks.

We did get out to do some fun things, though. Wednesday we drove over to Los Osos, mostly to see the GoWesty facility. If you’ve never heard of GoWesty, then you’re most likely not a Volkswagon Bus, Vanagon or Eurovan enthusiast.

GoWesty is a dealer, but the bulk of what they do is restoration and conversions. So if you have an old, crappy Vanagon, GoWesty can update it – completely. Need new upholstery? New engine? No problem. They “conversion” part means converting the vehicle to 4WD. So really, these guys can do pretty much anything.

Believe me, those enthusiasts are out there. The GoWesty website says for restoration and conversion work, the company is booked… for all of 2017.

The company does give tours, apparently, but when we arrived they were closed for lunch. So we looked around their little lot (enviously, these were some sweet rigs), before heading out for lunch ourselves.

In case you were wondering – GoWesty has a page on their website that details how much these conversions cost. Brace yourselves. A lot of what I saw on the website was late 1980’s and early 1990’s models, and the average cost of a convsersion/overhaul was $70,000. Some were as high at $117,000.

After I saw those numbers I stopped being so jealous. Because there is basically no way we could ever afford something like that, no matter how awesome it is. My main issue with a camper van (or a Sportsmobile, for that matter) is that it’s not a daily commuter. Ever. See, with Taco Negro, we can take off the RTT and the basket and the hitch-mounted bike rack, and that truck goes back to getting decent enough gas mileage that I wouldn’t mind driving it to work every day. The same cannot be said of a camper van. Why would you want to put commuter miles on a decked-out camper van, anyway?

So when I say that we could never ever afford something like that, it’s because we would need to have an extra $90,000 or so just sitting around, along with extra garage space to hold the vehicle that would only get used on special occasions.

Anyway. I will say that those GoWesty camper vans were super tricked out. We enjoyed looking at them.

We also (finally) went Stand-Up Paddleboarding at Avila Beach. We’ve been trying for a while now but the winds kept thwarting us.

See, this time of year, every afternoon the wind kicks up. This isn’t exactly a gentle breeze. Sometimes the wind gets cranking at 25-30mph. Another problem, as the folks at Avila Beach Paddlesports explained, is that this strong wind is normally from the northwest. If you get caught too far from shore in that wind (and being on a stand-up paddleboard basically makes you a giant sail), you will get blown all the way to Pismo Beach – 7 miles away!

So we finally got smart and went in the morning.

It was a gorgeous day – so sunny and warm that we didn’t need wetsuits. We saw several sea lions and lots of gulls, cormorants, and pelicans. Some fish – mostly the small ones that hung out around the kelp beds.

We paddled out along the Port San Luis pier and pulled up on the beach below the Port San Luis Lighthouse. We hiked up to check it out and saw this fabulous swing along the way.

Even I took a turn. (I loved swingsets as a kid, but as an adult they tend to make me a little sick.) So I didn’t swing for very long. It was fabulous, though. Like swinging out over the ocean.

We spent almost two hours on the boards. I am completely hooked! Wherever we settle (and San Luis Obispo is currently looking pretty good), I’ll be checking Craigslist for a used SUP.

So our plan is to head back out on the road on Sunday, June 4th. This is partly because we don’t want to look for a campsite over the weekend. But it’s also because Elvis’s ashes are due back June 3rd. I’m willing to wait a couple of extra days for him.

Hopefully we’ll have good coverage as we head out – the plan is to hit the eastern Sierras (especially Bishop, Mono Lake, Lake Tahoe) before going back west towards the coast. I don’t know how I feel about zig-zagging across the state, but in addition to the cool things along the eastern Sierras, I want to ride Skunk Train near Mendocino, visit Glass Beach near Fort Bragg, and visit Redwood National Park.

Actually, this is far more planning than I normally do. So we’ll see what happens. Stay tuned!