Paso Robles

We picked out this destination as one of my good friends, Dennis Marquardt told me it was one of his favorite places to visit in California. We learned on the way into town that those in the know call it El Pass de Robles.

I now know why. In most towns RV parks are nestled amidst the industrial corridor. Or they are right next to the active rail corridor. Or they back up against the freeway. In Paso Robles the RV parks are completely surrounded by huge fields of grape vines. In fact, that is pretty much what you see everywhere around the town. There could easily be a hundred vineyards within a 5 mile radius of Main Street.

While most of our time spent here was visiting several of the smaller family run wineries, we did manage to find the local bike trail. The Woman had become really unhappy with her bike. As our bikes hang on the back of the car day in and day out, they are exposed to all the elements 24/7. The grime and the accumulating rust all take their tolls. While my bike has toughed it out fairly well, the gears on the Woman’s bike really don’t operate very well. So, a visit to the local Target resulted in the Woman having a new Schwinn bike. And we had a nice peaceful ride for a change – no shouts by the Woman as the gears slipped and she reacted to avoid a spill.

Just down the road a bit was the Estrella Adobe Church. Long before Paso Robles was established the town of Estrella built up along the Estrella River. In 1879 the first Protestant church in San Luis Obispo County was built. While not open to visitors, the church still stands nearly 150 years later.

Alongside the adobe structure is the original cemetery. Surprisingly most of the headstones are still quite readable, even though most of them date back to the 1880’s. Sadly as we see in many old cemeteries the number of child graves is considerable. We don’t know if Josephine lived several days or several months, but in either case, it was all too short.

So this vineyard was nowhere close to the Estrella Adobe Church. But regardless I find it not to be the most compelling name for a winery. Maybe I am wrong and the name attracts folks just to check it out. But we chose not to.

Thanks again to La Mesa RV for making the Woman happy again. The new washer/dryer seems to work perfectly. It has several new settings that weren’t available on the old one, so smiles are everywhere inside Colectiva today. And quiet! It makes maybe half the noise the old washer/dryer made. Simple pleasures!

Talk to you soon!