Vineyard Cottage Somewhere in Central California

Vineyard Cottage in Templeton

Vineyard Cottage in Paso Robles

Vineyard Cottage in Cambria

Vineyard Cottage Somewhere in Central California

Barbara and I are on our fourth stop of our summertime California trip.  We are staying at a lovely cottage near Paso Robles (www.vrbo.com/170229). This cottage is as nice as the one we rented in Los Olivos (see previous blog post) and actually more scenic. A renowned silversmith, Randy Stromsoe (www.randystromsoe.com) owns the cottage.  Randy and his wife, Lisa, live in a large “barn” down in the valley below the cottage.  The first floor of the building is his workshop and the family lives upstairs.  They have several acres of grapes under cultivation and a friend and neighbor actually takes the grapes after harvest to make some fine wines.

The cottage is located on a property at the intersection of Old Creek Road and Route 46.  Old Creek road winds, and I do mean winds, about twelve miles to US1 near Cayucos.  Route 46 runs from Templeton to US1 just south of Cambria. The drive to Cambria goes over the mountains protecting the shoreline at 1,741 feet and has some spectacular costal vistas. We have done most of our food shopping in Templeton, but the town lacks a full grocery store, yet has a Trader Joe’s.  We also found a local fruit stand with delicious heirloom tomatoes.  Next to Trader Joe’s are a fish store and an adjacent meat market.  Both are small but adequate.

The afternoon we arrived, we had lunch in the center of Paso Robles.  The restaurant food was okay, but we had a wonderful bottle of wine, Epoch Estates Blend.  We wondered if we would come across the winery in our travels.  We were somewhat shocked at the restaurant, Artisan, when a toy poodle of one of the women sitting in a booth across from us jumped up on their table.  Soon after the dog was on the booth seat lapping water from the owner’s water glass.  After the meal we mentioned this to the hostess, who seemed not to be concerned.  She said the poodle was a “service dog” and thus allowed in the restaurant.  I wonder what service except companionship a toy poodle can provide.  We cancelled our Saturday night reservations at the Artisan restaurant.

Did I mention that it gets very dark at night up on our hill?  It does.  We have had no moon in the early evening and there are more stars visible than I can imagine.  It is possible to sit out on the front porch after dinner and enjoy the evening breeze with little or no harassment from insects.  The only break in the evening silence is the buzzing of insects in the trees and the occasional car traveling along RT46 about 1,500 yards away.  I did have one insect visitor in the afternoon that I wish I had missed.  Walking to our car that we park about 50 yards from the cottage – the driveway up to the cottage is not one where you want to use reverse gear at anytime.  We park at an area we can turn around easily to head back down to civilization. Coming back from the car I noticed something ambling along a large graveled area at the side of the cottage.  Taking a look, it was a spider, a large, very large spider.  Using my foot it took about three kicks to get the beast back into the forested back of the house and into the fallen oak leaves.  Heading straight to Google, I was able to ascertain that I had encountered a California tarantula. I am not a big fan of spiders.

We played golf twice this week.  It was the Ying and Yang of golf courses.  The Links at Paso Robles was rather “rustic”.  No water, no sand in the traps, no benches, no shade and long.  The gas golf cart sputtered and belched every time it was started.  The only foliage besides grass were coyote bushes.  Beyond the rough (and everyone knows I play beyond the rough) were expanses of hard packed soil.  Your ball could roll another 50 yards in this outback area.  The clubhouse is a double wide.  It was cheap, $33 each with a cart.  We did get to see a rocket launch that took place at Vandenberg AFB while playing!  Two days later we played Hunter’s Ranch merely a mile and a half from the links.  This was a very nice course.  Like most California courses we played, it was not set up for a woman’s game.  Barbara found it very hard.  The slope rating is 131 from the white tees.  I shot a 93 even though I shot a double bogie each of the four par fives (with a good drive on each of those holes!).  We went through three bottles of water and four Coors Lights during the round and were glad we took the pro shop’s advice to fill our cooler with ice at the restaurant.  We walked off the course and the temperature was 102.  Dry heat or not, we were roasted.

I am really rambling on this post.  Let me sign off with one more light coincidence.  Remember that nice bottle of wine we had at our first meal in the area?  Later that afternoon we headed from the cottage to Templeton to purchase some groceries.  Less than two miles from the cottage, Barbara notices a billboard up on a mountain surrounded by trees indicating the next left turn is the tasting room for Epoch Wineries.  The next day we stopped in and tasted and bought three fine wines.  The 2009 Reserva Tempranillo and the 2010 Authenticity are the two best wines we have had on this trip.

Back at Fig Cottage in Los Olivos

It is August 2017 and we are back at Fig Guest House for the third time.  We love this are of California.  We are much more familiar with the area now and have discovered most of the better restaurants and wineries.  Nest Sunday we fly back to soggy Naples, Florida.

Barbara and I are on a two-month trek to escape the heat and humidity of August and September in Naples, Florida.  Ironically our first stop was a six-day visit to Las Vegas.  Out for lunch on our first day in Vegas, I checked my weather.com APP; it was 102 degrees in Las Vegas and only 92 in Naples.  Yet the “feels like temperature” was reversed for both locations.  A quick read from us about Las Vegas – it is a good long weekend stop, but six days is a little too much.

We left our Las Vegas timeshare one day early to drive to Lompoc, California for a visit to my daughter and her family.  We had a very comfortable stay.  Lompoc is near Vandenberg Air Force Base and is subject to the Pacific Coast marine layer for its weather. You wake up every morning with a layer of fog, not ground fog, but low cloud cover.  It is cool and damp with temperatures in the 50’s.  Around ten thirty, the cloud layer has passed and the temperature rises.  By three o’clock it might be 74 degrees.  There is always a breeze and golfing is very pleasant. After three, the marine layer reappears and temperatures slowly drop back into the fifties.  A drive “up the valley” is about twenty minutes and if you get to Santa Ynez or Solvang, the afternoon temperatures are in the high 80’s.  That’s enough about the climate.

We stayed in a very interesting cottage for the week (http://www.vrbo.com/402225).  It is located about three quarters of a mile north of downtown Los Olivos.  Keep in mind that Los Olivos is a town with zero traffic lights. Los Olivos does have a couple of good restaurants and one inn. There is a tack store and a post office.  What is does not lack are wine tasting rooms.  There are twenty-seven tasting rooms spread over three streets.  Actually, we only visited one.  We are purist and prefer tasting rooms at the actual wineries.  But it is an excellent way to try many too many wines and not have to drive. 

We checked into our cottage a little after 4 PM.  After unpacking we headed into town for dinner and were back on our wrap around porch to share some wine, enjoy the cool evening and watch the sunset.  As the moon began to rise, we finally realized we were sitting on the side of the house facing east.  It was a fabulous full moon.  We went off to bed, probably around 9:30 PM.  The cottage has a nice bedroom and adjoining bath.  We closed the blinds put on a light in the bathroom and drifted off – there is no TV in the bedroom.  A short time latter I awoke to the sounds of a pack of coyotes and what I believe was a chicken that was in the act of becoming a late dinner for the coyotes.  It was a bit unnerving. After drifting back to sleep, I need to visit the bathroom.  The light was no longer on, since the cottage lights have timers with motion detectors to turn off the circuits after about thirty minutes of no activity.  I successfully found the bathroom door. The rest of the week we left a lighted candle in the bathroom.

Most mornings there was early cloud cover and the browned grass was covered with dew.  I did have early morning visitors one day. There were about twenty birds in the covey and it stayed in the area for about twenty minutes. Around eight thirty the morning clouds give way to clear blue skies.  The temperature makes a gradual rise to the eighties, but it is a perfect time for a morning walk.  We took our walks on Figueroa Mountain Road. One morning we headed back toward Lompoc to play a round of golf at the Village Country Club (http://www.villagecc.net/v2/golfcourse.php). This is a private club, but after a short conversation with the pro, Bob Kotowski, we were able to book tee times.  The club is casual and has a fine course layout.  It is higher up the valley than downtown Lompoc, and the morning fog allows a sunny environment for any tee off time later than 10 AM. Insert golfing picture.  This morning we were paired with two club members. On the very difficult eighth hole, 408 yard, dogleg right with a large oak tree in the right center of the fairway about 125 yard from the tee box, my planned high soaring tee shot aimed over the tree to get me past the dogleg was executed perfectly except for the altitude part.  My solidly struck low flying drive went right at the center of the massive oak just high enough to clear the area where two openings are made as the main branches begin.  Not a leaf was touched.  I was left with 168 yards to the pin from the middle of the fairway.  Somehow I was able to not over swing with my five iron and the ball landed on the green rolled one yard and was sitting ten feet slightly below the hole.

I could see it now – a bronze plaque nailed to the mighty oak:

Through the tree, for a birdie three.

CPH 8/20/13

What I got was a cocktail napkin with a hand penned message:

Through the tree without a mar, had to settle for a two-putt par.

CPH 8/20/13

Latter in the week we played at the Alisal River Course in Solvang.  This course was made famous for a hosting a couple of scenes in the movie Sideways.  It is much too long a course from the red tees, over 5,700 yards.  There was a persistent 20 mph wind throughout the afternoon.

The best part of the week was driving along Foxen Canyon Road and taking in the summer beauty of this massive stretch of farm and grazing area.  Houses and ranches are few and far apart.  Wineries, vineyards and horse ranches are spaced far apart and stretch all the way along this road from Los Olivos to Santa Maria.  We did find some favorite wines during our travels.  Insert picture of wines.

On Saturday we had a BBQ at the cottage with my daughter and her family.  It was a great finish to a great week.