Day 36

Woke up to beautiful sunshine and a gorgeous view of the mountains. It is amazing that here in a valley they have high speed Internet when we cannot even get it at home. Left the Rancho and headed up Hwy #154 towards Solvang. Popped in at Cachuma Lake to check it out, looked like a nice campground next to the lake. Great if you had a boat and wanted to do some fishing.

Since we were driving through wine country Tim was hoping to be able to do some wine tasting. We were fortunate to find a nice winery that was open for tasting and it was just off the highway, just before the town of Santa Ynez. Gainey Vineyard was the name of the place we chose and it was a very lovely place. Tim got his wine tasting and I sampled a few myself. My taste buds told me that they were almost all exactly the same but they were not so "winey" tasting compared to what I have tasted in the past. Tim was hoping that he would find something that he really liked but found that none of them were worth the money.

Continuing on a few miles we reached the town of Solvang, a quaint little Dutch village where we shopped, bought pastries and had lunch. I had wiener schnitzel with fried potatoes and red cabbage. On we drove to Pismo Beach passing fields of grapes, then vegetables and fruit and even some pasture land. Very beautiful drive.

Upon reaching Pismo Beach we took a road leading to the beach just to check it out and discovered that you could camp on the beach (only $10) and ride ATV's through the sand dunes. So we decided to "go for it". We did get stuck trying to find a place to park but Tim found a nice guy who came and pulled us out. We parked close to his trailer and ended up spending some time visiting with them at their camp fire. Enjoyed supper in the camper listening to the waves then went back to the camp fire for more visiting. Returned home and spent the night sleeping on the beach (inside our warm camper in our comfy bed) watching the moon and listening to the waves. Definately something we never imagined ourselves doing. It was great!