Paso Robles - a siren's call luring us away from the sea

Once we were back on the coast, it was really hard to think about leaving it again. Being there on the water, with the waves crashing in, the breeze wafting in to cool things down, and the sea life to enjoy, made me question our plans. They weren't very solid at this point anyway. We'd originally planned to head to Lake Havasu and Nevada right after my daughter went home from L.A. but we'd changed our minds after seeing my parents updates from Santa Barbara.

I started to think maybe we should just head up the coast, and stay near the beach all the way up. But we'd just done that in October and it's much more expensive to stay on the beach. Everything is more expensive, from diesel to groceries to overnight spots. I kept going back and forth in my mind, and Harold is so accommodating,  he's happy to go wherever I want.

If there's one thing that has the potential to drag me inland, away from the sea, it's the promise of some great wine. Paso Robles has some great wine, and lots of it. We'd been through there in October, and had a fantastic time hitting up the wineries on the west side of town, but there were so many places we'd not been able to get to, so we decided to head there next, and put off the decision of which way to go, for a couple of days.

The last time we were here, we'd stayed at Stacked Stone Cellars. They are one of three wineries in town that are part of the Harvest Host Program. For a small yearly fee, you gain access to wineries, farms, and other unique places where you can stay overnight at no charge. You are expected to make a purchase, in support of the place you are staying, but that's no hardship at all. We'd be buying the wine, or produce anyway.

This time we decided to try Tobin James Cellars on the east side of town. This winery is right off Hwy 46, that cuts east-west across town and inland towards the Bakersfield area. I asked if we could stay two nights instead of one, and they were fine with that. The RV parking is very easy to get into. It's a big, hard packed field across the road from the winery. The south and east sides of the field are wooded and there is a hill teeming with ground squirrels that drove one of my dog's crazy (Teddy of course, Toonie is even smaller than the adult squirrels and mind's her own business) but were so much fun to watch. They only came out of their holes in the mornings and spent the rest of the day underground.

Ground squirrels all over the hill

We noticed there was a crows nest up in one of the trees and knew there must be babies up there but all we could see were the parents. One morning, as we were sitting out with our coffee watching the squirrel families feeding on the hill, one of the crows swooped down and grabbed a baby. He flew to a mound ten feet over and started ripping it apart.

The crow and it's prey

I'm sure the baby was dead super quick, and I know it's just life, but it was so horrible to watch. Then I grew angry at the other mother squirrels on the hill that weren't immediately rounding up their kids and getting them inside. This one bad mother was way down the hill, munching on the best stuff while her babies, who were quite close to where the crow perched, skittered around in confusion and fear. I wanted to go running up there, scare them all underground, and scare that crow away, but knew that was the wrong thing to do. The crows need to eat, and the squirrels need to as well. Thankfully, that was the only kill we saw.


Tobin James Cellars, built on the site of an old stagecoach stop, has a good sized and busy tasting room, in the style of an old wild west saloon. There is one long bar all along the back of the large room and another square bar in the front. There were about six servers looking after us all and the bars were lined with people. Everyone but us seemed to be local. We enjoyed all their wines but ended up buying a bottle of their 2011 Zinfandel "Ballistic" and one of their 2010 Petite Sirah "Black Magic".



In October, we'd stuck to wine tasting at the smaller wineries on the west side, up in Peachy Canyon. This time, we visited the larger wineries along the highway, and then made our way back along Union Road.

Harold and I have a really hard time not buying wine from every winery we go to. When you have to pay $5-10 for a tasting, but the charge is waived if you buy a bottle of wine, and you really like their wine, it's hard not to. The problem is, we can only bring back four bottles to Canada and we like to keep our better, pricier wines for home, when we have people over who will appreciate them.


So we made a pact this time, to only buy a bottle if we absolutely love it, and we did pretty well with the first few wineries. By the time we got to the wineries on Union Road though, I was already in chatty Tracey mode, and loving all the wine. By the time we got back, we were well over our four bottle take home limit, but that was a worry for another day.

Our two favorite wineries on this trip, other than Tobin James, were Rio Seco and Falcon Nest, both on Union Road, which parallels highway 46. Rico Seco is the third winery in Paso Robles that is part of the Harvest Hosts program. The owner was manning the bar this day and she showed us around outside to where she allows the RVs to park and it is just so lovely there. I can't wait to come back. She told us they also have a guest house there that they allow people to book and stay at.

Falcon Nest is right down the road, with similar beautiful terrain as Rio Seco. Run by an Italian-American man and his Hawaiian wife, these were, hands down my favorite wines of the area. The big difference between their wines and all the others is the aging. His wines are all from 2003 while all the other vineyards are 2010 and up. His were just a superior quality.

Once again, we had a wonderful time in Paso Robles. With my OCD tendencies, I feel the need to get to all the wineries here eventually, and it's just not doable in a few trips. If you were to visit a winery a day, it would take you six months to see them all. Guaranteed to keep us coming back again and again.

Santa Barbara - The American Riviera

There are three state beach campgrounds by Santa Barbara. Carpinteria is 12 miles south of Santa Barbara El Capitan is 17 miles west and Refugio is 20 miles west. We chose Refugio this time, since my parents had just been there the month before and had enjoyed it.

When reserving the camp site, I had made the assumption that it was right on the water. The map had made it appear so, but it turns out there is a lane of public beach parking along the water. Still, it was a beautiful place to be, especially once all the day people went home and left us alone there. Weekends are very busy at the beach with lots of locals, but weekdays are nice and quiet. I expect once summer hits it will be busy every day of the week.

We went for a hike along the water and were rewarded by the sight of a grey whale. It was so exciting to see it's nose coming out and diving back down again. We weren't sure if it was feeding or travelling. It looked to be doing both.

Grey whale sighting along the beach.

On Monday we drove into Santa Barbara to see the sights. We hit up the tourist centre first, where we were given a city map and directed to the different places to see. The harbour has three beaches, a wharf, restaurants, and a Maritime Museum. Since we'd had to work all day, and it was now late afternoon, we didn't have enough time to do both the town and the waterfront so we chose to go up a few blocks into town instead.

The Presidio

The downtown is a beautiful area full of Spanish-Moorish architecture, white stucco walls and red-tile roofs. Free parking is plentiful around the city, and even though our truck is too tall to fit into the parking structures, we easily found a spot along the road right in the midst of the old city area.

Gorgeous Courthouse

We got out and walked around the gorgeous downtown, taking in the city hall, Presidio and other old buildings.

There are quite a few homeless people here. As we were walking past the library we came upon an old man who looked very rough sitting upon an adobe bench. A security guard stood just feet from him, staring at him - or actually - glaring at him, as if daring him. I got the feeling the guard had just spoken to him about pan-handling and was watching to make sure he didn't approach us. I couldn't be sure, but I watched, trying to decipher their body language. I felt protective towards the old guy and had he asked, I'd have given him a few dollars, but he never asked.

She was posing for a photo like this.

Around the corner we came upon three homeless people sitting on another bench. A woman stood in front of them passing out meals. The larger blonde spoke up, motioning to her friend "She's Vegan, she won't eat meat!" And it struck me as funny and touching at the same time. This little woman has nothing. She can't feed herself. You'd think she'd be happy with anything, but she'd rather go hungry than eat meat. That's conviction. The woman handing out the food stuck her hand in another bag and brought out a Vegan meal. Only in California, I thought.

Halfway down the next block we stopped for a happy hour glass of wine and free appetizer out on the sidewalk while we watched people pass us by. We debated having dinner there, but then decided to look for other places with happy hour deals.

She swings for a living.

The street here is lined with stores, restaurants and bars. We belatedly realized it was Cinco de Mayo when we noticed all the bars with revellers and décor for the day.

We found another side-walk bistro where we ordered wine and some exceptional Panini, and settled in to watch the people wander by. The Mexican bar beside us was full of partiers doing tequila shots, and the bar across the road brimmed with partiers doing the same.

A big amphibian vehicle full of screaming, drinking masses came by and stopped in front of us. "Woo!" they yelled, in the language of young drunks. "Wooooo!" The bar patrons yelled back. "Wooooooooooo!" They screamed back, not to be outdone. Then they were off again, down the road.

Deformed back legs don't slow him down.

We were wishing we'd brought the dogs along with us, especially seeing all the other people with dogs there. But Teddy just isn't ready for that sort of thing yet. He's a big scaredy cat, and he barks at everything when he's afraid, especially dogs - and birds - some people too. Not all dogs are good sidewalk cafe dogs and he may never become one. That's okay, we love him just the way he is. Since we'd left them, we needed to get back soon. We drove up the road a bit to visit the Mission, then headed back up the coast. We'll be back.

Jazz, murder and the Brady Bunch?

One of the more atypical things we did was to accompany my brother up to the Vitello's Restaurant in Studio City. Vitello's is a great looking old style Italian Jazz and Supper Club. Since the 60's they've been hosting jazz, cabaret, and world music shows for both local acts and musicians traveling through town.

This is the restaurant Robert Blake (remember Baretta and his cockatoo Fred?) took his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley for dinner, on May 4, 2001, before she was shot in her car around the corner. Blake said he'd gone back to the restaurant to get the gun he'd left there (how does someone forget their gun in a restaurant?) and when he came back, he found her dead from two shots through an open window. The gun he had gone back for was shown not to be the murder weapon - the murder weapon was found in a dumpster a few yards from the car.

It wasn't until 3.5 years later that Blake was charged with Bonnie's murder, and though there were witnesses who swore he'd tried to pay them to murder her, he was eventually found not guilty. On the night of his acquittal, several fans celebrated at Blake's favourite place - where else but Vitello's?

Okay, so we weren't here as some sort of macabre murder tour - though we're not above that sort of thing - we were here because every Wednesday afternoon, my brother's favorite Internet radio station, MartiniInTheMorning.com hosts a lunch where listener's can come, watch them tape the show and meet the hosts.

My brother, Andrew, has been listening to the show for many years and is well known to them. When we came in, he was recognized and they were genuinely excited to finally meet him. We had a wonderful lunch of old style pizza, pasta and wine, while Andrew enjoyed martinis with the hosts.


The restaurant was quite full for a Wednesday afternoon. There was a couple seated at the next table to us. The young, dark haired beauty spoke on her phone a lot, while the older man in sunglasses sat beside her, with an air of self-importance. Every so often she'd stroke his ego, tell him how great he was, then go back to selling him on another phone call. It sounded to me like she was his promoter or agent or something like that. I couldn't help but wonder who he was.

A woman came up to talk to the hosts of the show, and we were told she had been a child actress. We wondered if we'd seen her in anything, and it turns out we have. Debi Storm was in an episode of the Brady Bunch, a particularly memorable one, if you were a fan. She played Molly Webber, a plain girl who Marcia feels sorry for, so she gives her a makeover, and unleashes a monster who is out to beat her to be hostess for senior banquet night. As soon as I heard the character's name I recognized it. It's strange how such a memory can just sit there in your head for so many years, yet just the other day I couldn't remember my dog's name.

Anaheim is a good place to stay if your main focus is the Disney parks and Knotts Berry Farm, but everything else is an hour or more away. It's pretty much the only place to park your RV in the city area, unless you go out somewhere like Huntington Beach. It's fun to watch the fireworks from your site each weekend night, and the groups that come in for the weekends like to spend time outside, in more of a camping or vacation mode than we usually come across. I think though, this will probably be our last foray to the Disneyland area and parks until we have grandchildren to spoil  take there. We fit in pretty much every tourist thing you can do, tours, parks, and shows, and we'll not do it again for another 10 years or so.

With my brother gone back home and then my daughter leaving, I fell into a bit of a depression. Even my parents, who had been on the road in their RV during the same time (though at different places) were now home, and I was feeling like I just wanted to go home as well. I knew though, once we left Los Angeles, and moved on to new places, the sadness would leave me again, and I'd once again enjoy the travel.

So off to Santa Barbara we go!

Conan O'Brien - Attitude really does come from the top-down

Right from the start, Conan O'Brien was the opposite of Chelsea Handler. We'd taken the Warner Brothers studio tour earlier and been told there were some standby tickets available for his show. We were a little gun shy, wondering if it was worth our time to be treated like cattle once again like we'd experienced days earlier at the Chelsea Lately show. In the end, we decided to give it a go.

We drove over to Gate 8 where there was free underground parking available for us, and thankfully it had a high enough clearance to get our truck in. We checked into the waiting area, where they had a metal detector, and ID check, for all of us. Chelsea didn't have that. We were given a number and told that reserved our place in line and we could leave if we wanted, but to be back in an hour.

Everyone, even the security was friendly and helpful. We hadn't had time for lunch so we were looking at the vending machines, wondering what was the best of the worst to eat, and the security guard behind us told us there was a food truck right down the flight of stairs from us. The food was actually pretty good too. Back upstairs again, a staff member came around giving out popsicles. Someone else pointed out the water cooler at the side of the room.

When it was time to line up, they called us in sections of numbers and organized us numerically. There were a few special tags, but they were interspersed with the standbys, not put to the front. No bimbos were put to the front either. It was all done fairly, first come, first served. Because weather reports had proposed the temperature would be 97F, we were bused over to the studio, instead of having us walk the couple of blocks. That struck me as excessive, but one of the staff said it is standard operating procedure when the temperatures get that high.

With number 84, we were at the start of the last bus and when all were seated, there were only four seats empty in the audience.  I wondered if that was coincidental or if some people had been turned away when trying to get a number. Nobody had been left behind in the waiting area.  The studio was much bigger than Chelsea's, with probably five times the number of seats.We were asked, not threatened, to turn off our phones before we got in the studio. I saw a guy in the next section with his phone on, and a staff member tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to turn it off. Chelsea's staff would have booted his ass out of there.

The warm-up guy came out, explained the way the show works, got us all laughing and whooping it up, picked on a few audience members and then introduced the band. I don't usually pay much attention to talk show bands. We just don't see enough of them during the show. This band was amazing. They played a great show, in itself. They were on for about 15 minutes and the most impressive part was at the end when the trumpet player came through the audience strutting his stuff, ending by holding the same note 3-4 minutes, with no breath, while the band played. I kept expecting him to either end it, run out of breath, or pass out, but he even had enough breath to end on a flourish. Amazing!

After the band ended their show, Conan's sidekick, Andy Richter was brought out. He and the warm-up/producer guy made a few jokes with each other and then it was time for the show.

Martin Short

In Chelsea's studio, we could barely hear them and really had to strain to hear anything. In Conan's studio, the sound was great and we could easily hear everything. He came out, to do his monologue, spoke to the audience and even included us in part of his jokes, then went to commercial break. The monologue was about current events, and today it was about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford going to rehab. This was the first part of Canadian content day.

During the break, Conan was joking and talking with people while the set was changed and the band played, keeping the audience rared up. The dais on which his couch and desk are situated, rolls forward to the centre of the stage, and he and Andy take their seats, where they could be seen talking to each other. About what, I have no idea, their mics were off. I figured it was maybe about what was up next and what they needed to do, but it could have easily been about what they had for dinner last night.

Jessica Pare

When the show came back, Conan set up the next bit by telling us about the "contest" they have going on with viewers who contact the show to report any mistakes Andy or Conan make. To continue with Canadian Content day, the guy shown on the video was from Vancouver Island. He was reporting that Conan had misnamed a melon in a previous segment. The guy was obviously wrong when we were showed the bit ourselves, but I think what got him on was his arrogance, telling Conan "He was busy and had to get back to doing something important - planting trees" obviously implying that Conan's show was frivolous. We all groaned and jeered as he deserved and Conan had some great comebacks that had us all in tears.

The two guests of the show this day, were Martin Short, a comedian best known for his stints on SCTV and SNL, but also in movies, and Jessica Paré, who plays Don Draper's second wife, Megan, on Mad Men. Both, strangely enough are also Canadian. Conan made a comment about it being "Canada Day" on the show and a number of us cheered, to which he retorted, "Oh sure, you're all Canadians now! Where were you when we had the tree planter on?"

Kelis

The last guest was a singer I didn't know, but my daughter, Cairo, did. Looking up Kelis' background, I should have heard of her before now. She has been nominated for two Grammys, won numerous other awards, and released 6 studio albums. She's had 10 top ten singles in Britain. I really enjoyed her music and can now be counted as a fan.

Conan oozes with niceness and seems to really like people. He plays to the audience at times, and during commercial breaks, he talks to his guests. I remember seeing Chelsea Handler go off on Piers Morgan because during commercial breaks, he completely ignored her, and instead was on his phone. I had cheered her on, watching her from home, but now, seeing Conan in action made me realize even more how rude Chelsea had been to us, and how hypocritical.

While Kelis was performing, Conan was right up there, watching, clapping, and even singing along in bits. It made me like him all the more. After Kelis was finished he went up to thank her and end the show. Then as the show ended, he made sure to meet and talk to everyone in her band. I was amused to see them all taking selfies, especially with Jessica Pare. Of course, with Jessica Pare. Have you seen her?

So the show was over, the cameras off, all the guests gone behind the curtains, and what does Conan do? Does he give a snarky partial smile and wave and walk off? Nope, he starts singing to us, jumping up into the audience. The band joins in, and he gets going. The lyrics seem to be made up on the spot, something along the lines of "This is the end of the show song, the one they never hear on tv!" and went on for longer, but I can't remember any more of the words. For all we know he might do the same thing every night, but we didn't care. We all just loved it, and loved him.

The temperature had gone down so they let us walk back from the studio. Along the way there were staff members keeping us from veering off where we weren't allowed, but when they had to remind people to go the right way, they were never rude. They smiled, and were very polite. At the final crosswalk, we had a conversation with one of the staff, who just oozed with excitement when talking about the show, and Conan in particular. It was all such a nice, happy, friendly experience, matching along with Conan's attitude. It made me realize, just like Chelsea's show, the attitude really does come from the top-down.