FLASHBACK---Fragment of my Birthday Trip from 2016.

I just stumbled on this fragment of an email series about a birthday trip to the Central Coast in 2016...which was my 51st birthday. All that survives of this trip log is this first entry. My actual birthday doesn't happen in this part. You do get the swanky accomodations at the Madonna Inn--but not the dinner in the opulent dining room. I don't recall what happened exactly for my actual birthday. Whatever---this fragment is what it is.

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Hi there! How are you? I hope all is well. Me?  I'm now old(er). Last Friday was my 51st (!?!) birthday. I don't believe it either. Heck, it seems like just last year I was getting my driver's license! Eek!  Ahhh... Last year's birthday was a big one (50!!!!) and it was magical fun on the best trip ever to New Orleans. This year, New Orleans (or any place far away really) was not gonna happen. But I still wanted to escape Fresno at least...if I couldn't escape from Father Time. So, I decided I was going to head to the Central Coast for a few days. Why not?



Erich decided to go with me--hooray! He always makes the journey more fun. I rented a car, a Jeep Renegade, which I really liked. When I first got in it, I thought there was some funky new car smell in the car--but it wasn't too bad. It was only after the car sat in the sun a while that you could tell that it wasn't a strange new car smell. Instead it reeked of POT! Ha! I didn't mind so much (as soon as the A/C went on, you couldn't really smell it). I was just worried about what would happen if we got pulled over by a cop. Yikes! 

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We had no itinerary and no reservations anywhere (other than the first night). We just went for it. We got into San Luis Obispo around 2 pm and headed for the Madonna Inn. Yep, I had always wanted to stay in one of their cave rooms and after deciding I was going to birthday at the coast, I figured why not do it now---since who knows if I'd ever get around to it otherwise? I looked through the photos of their various rooms (which are all different from each other) and chose the "Rock Bottom" room. The "Caveman" room is the most famous, but it's also more expensive. Instead, I chose Rock Bottom. It just looked the cave-iest to me.

   

 

 

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This first photo of the room is a professional photo the Inn had done. It's taken from the entry way. Behind that big rock wall is the bathroom. My pictures suck, but here they are...

   

  

   

The last picture is hard to see. It's the waterfall shower. I dug it, but Erich didn't and apparently other guests were not impressed either, so you had your choice of the waterfall shower or a traditional shower head. There were two controls built into the wall...

After checking in, Erich wanted to visit Mission San Luis Obispo. I had been before (Hello? I used to teach 4th grade... the California Missions were our curriculum), but didn't mind going again.

  

   

 

  

After the mission, Erich wanted to check out the town a bit. The first thing we did was the enchanting little creek walk area directly across from the mission.

   

We walked around the downtown area. Afterwards, we decided to have a cocktail along the creek and wandered back to find a place. We stopped at one place and ordered drinks...and lo' and behold, where we went happened to be a tiki bar. Ha! That was totally accidental. The Creeky Tiki wasn't much of a tiki bar...but they tried, so you have to give 'em a little credit. Once I realized it was a tiki bar, I wanted to see what the inside was like (we had entered from the back end, on the patio near the creek).

  

  

That's a lot of photos....so i'll stop the first part here. Still to come, dinner at the Madonna Inn, the infamous waterfall urinal, and my birthday!

Stay tuned (or not).

Cha-cha-cha!  

CHEERS!

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That's all there is. I can't find any more sections. I do recall eating at this so-so restaurant in Paso Robles for my actual birthday dinner (This was after the awful obviously frozen abalone dinner I had had the night before at the Madonna Inn in the gold and pink dining room). The rest of the trip is a blur...  I must have visited CHRONIC CELLARS winery, as I had a membership with them for a year and that ended last (2017) spring. Pear Valley Winery may also have been a stop, but I am not sure. This is all there is.

CHEERS!