Editor’s note: (Hah! Yeah, like I’m some big shot, highly educated writer) I am not sure how much longer I can tolerate “updates”/”improvements”/or any other euphamism for making something supposed to be simple and user friendly to more confusing, difficult, and very NOT user friendly. The rocket scientists at WordPress continue to “update” their product; those updates making user life miserable for us who are admittedly technologically challenged. I am going to keep fumbling along as long as I can handle it, but just be aware the end may be nigh, thanks to WordPress. This current post is my first with their last change in format. It took me over 4 hours to get it done, most of the problem being with manipulating the media (photos) inserts. The new “block” format is clumsy at best for incompetents like myself. I hope none of my photos turn out sideways and my one panoramic photo turns out. So, here goes… 

We left Sonoma County and decided to ditch the usual route through the East Bay/Oakland/San Jose area. Instead, we headed east to Lodi, then chose to stay at the Lodi Elks Lodge for a few days. We scouted out the Lodi area, checked out the Lodi Beer Co. brewery, then ventured into Folsom for some shopping and an obligatory stop for lunch and “sodas” at Out of Bounds Brewing Co. Call me goofy, but I am starting to take a liking to barleywine style beers. OB had one called  Hurly Burly, a port wine barrel-aged barleywine (12.6% ABV whewwwww!).

Next stop was back to Atascadero for the month of December to do some grandbaby-sitting. We started off with our allotted week’s worth of time at the Atascadero Elks Lodge, but needed to find something longer term. The Sun Resorts triad of parks in Paso Robles are all very nice to stay at, but like most Sun Resorts are very pricy. We have stayed at all 3, The Vines RV Resort, Wine Country RV Resort, and one of the crown jewels and newest of the whole Sun Resorts system – Cava Robles RV Resort. We just did not want to pay $65 to over $100 per night depending on resort and site type. We had seen the Paso Robles RV Ranch in visits past just off Hwy. 101 and Jeanne gave them a call. We were surprised they maintained reasonable rates so we got hooked up for a month’s stay ($900 which worked out to $29 per night). Once we got to “the ranch”, it turned out to be a really nice park, even with the long term residents present.

Then, it was time to settle in with Little Miss Hailey and Little Miss Ellie.  “Christmas For Atascadero” is a yearly event in downtown Atascadero. The town brings in loads of “snow” and sets up a couple of areas, one for the older kids to sled down and one for the wee ones to frolick in and toss snowballs. They have food booths, vendors of “stuff”, and bounce houses for the kids. Chad & Crissy loaded up Hailey and Ellie and we accompanied them to the event. Ellie is a bit too young to be able to enjoy the full effect of the celebration, but Hailey certainly had fun in the snow and the bounce houses.

Atascadero surely comes alive during the holidays. The Charles Paddock Zoo puts on a seasonal event called, go figure, “Zoo Holiday Magic”. Hailey & Ellie got to enjoy a Christmas themed visit to the zoo and a visit with Santa himself.

For Christmas, Jenn and Max traveled to Atascadero from Santa Rosa to join in the family festivities at her brother Chad’s house. We had a very enjoyable family Christmas, we hope you all had the same.

Jeanne & I took a bit of time for ourselves and revisited Bishop’s Peak. It is a fairly steep 2 hour hike (with Woody our dog trailblazing the way) to the top, with a good view all the way out to the ocean on a clear day. It was fairly clear for us, we could see ocean.

Jeanne wanted to give Hailey some “special time” and found the Pismo State Beach Butterfly Grove. We took Hailey and Woody to the grove and besides the Monarch butterflies, Hailey got to see her first coyote up close. Then we chowed down at Hoagies Grill in Pismo Beach, from the size of the crowd an apparent locals favorite.

Our duties completed, it was time to say bye-bye and head for our next stop, Coarsegold, for Jeanne’s mom Yvonne’s birthday. We spent quite a few days there, celebrating by going into town (Fresno) and putzing around, taking a country drive to Mariposa on Hwy. 49, and generally just having a nice visit with Yvonne and Fred. We started out mooch-docking at Fred’s daughter’s vacation home (as we did before), but have since moved over to the SKP park here in Coarsegold—Park Sierrra. There we had FHU’s for badly needed laundry duties and a 50A power supply to be able to run heaters without the generator (it’s been in the 30’s at night). Thankfully, it’s only cold here, no snow…yet.

That catches us up for now. Until next post…

I have to apologize to all of my family and friends who show interest in our world travels through reading of our blog. Unfortunately, in the infinite wisdom of the folks at WordPress, they continue to “improve”/”upgrade” or whatever euphamism you wish to assign to a process of making something that should be simple and user friendly into a highly technical, complicated MESS! I am really technologically challenged and this latest change WordPress has made to their system threw me over the top. We are going to cancel our WordPress account and spend that money on something far more enjoyable, maybe like getting a root canal at the dentist. We will resolve ourselves to posting pix and location updates on the usual array of social media programs. (Editor’s note: As of 10/24/2022, I have buckled and kept the account going, so slog along I will for who knows how long…)