CALIFORNIA
San Luis Obispo
When my old coworker asked me if I’d like to meet up in San Luis Obispo for the weekend there was no way I was saying no! My old boss has an Airbnb there he rents out which we used as our home base. I left my place early Friday morning to go borrow a car from my parents and made the 3.5 hour drive to SLO, getting there around 11 AM.
After I got settled in, we spent the day at Oceano Dunes Natural Preserve on the beach. I brought my water, snacks, swimsuit and beach towel and we had a very good day playing in the water, snacking and watching the sun set.
Saturday we met up with my old manager to do a few activities around town. I really wanted to hike on this trip but it was pretty hot on Saturday and the air quality wasn’t great. So the men humored me with a hike at Pismo Preserve but it was uphill and we didn’t last very long. I think we were walking for only like thirty minutes! I’m still tagging this as 2020 State Parks but I’m not proud of it.
Probably if the air quality was better we could’ve had a really nice view of the ocean.
I think the hill went further up from where we started heading down but I’m not really sure how much better payout you could get from this location.
With our “hike” out of the way, it was time for wine tasting!
I’ve been wine tasting in Paso Robles and I do think the wine in this area is superior to the wine in say, Sonoma or Napa. My old manager got us a table at Timbre Winery in downtown Arroyo Grande and we were able to bring his fluffy dog! Check out Maggie’s instagram page for more pictures.
We unanimously decided to get the wine flight which was interesting. I believe it was one chardonnay (which I normally don’t like), and three reds. Two of the reds were from made with grapes from one vineyard each, one was a blend of grapes from two vineyards, and the final red I don’t remember the details of. I was mostly surprised I liked the chardonnay at all, but the reds were superb. I actually somewhat liked the single vineyard reds better.
It was pretty funny – the waitress turned out to have once been the school teacher of one of my old manager’s kids, and another woman recognized the dog because she does exercise class with my old manager’s wife. It was interesting feeling that small town vibe that hard!
Afterwards we had homecooked dinner at the Airbnb with tri tip, beans, salad and wine!
Sunday morning I had to get up and drive home to get packed and ready for Arizona.