Friday, July 16
Here's another trip to the beautiful Central Coast
Area. We left Hayward just after noon and took
Highway 101 to Paso Robles and checked in at our Motel.
It was pretty darn hot with temperatures around 107
degrees. Hot. Hot.
After we left, my wife said that she wanted a milk shake
and I spotted an A&W Root Beer, so we pulled in.
No milk shake, but she had a Root Beer Float and I got a
large plain old Root Beer and we were on our way.
We then drove down to Atascadero and crossed over to
Morro Bay on Highway 41. We headed over to
Giovanni's on the Wharf and ordered up two Halibut and
Chips for my wife and I. There was no line when I
arrived there and I got my order in about ten minutes.
I noticed that everybody was wearing sweaters or coasts
as it ws quite cool there. Rather cloudy with
temps around 60 degrees, almost 50 degrees cooler than
Paso Robles. There were quite a number of people eating
there, but we left and headed over to the parking lot
near the ocean where we decided to eat this time.
Sometimes we eat in the lot across from there and face
the bay. There were a number of people surfing out
there.
The food was pretty good, as usual and I still have to
say that this is the best fish & chips around.
Been coming here for at least 20 year's.
WE ARRIVED at the American Legion parking lot around
5:20 and had to wait about an hour for the Farmer's
Market to clear out. There's always 2-3 of them
that take their time and force us to wait. There
were a number of vendor's hanging around waiting for the
time to set up.
I went over and asked one of the 'Legionairre's' to show
me my space and we found it. After awhile, I was
finally able to drive my van over to the vicinity of my
space. It was kind of hectic with a bunch of
vendor's zig-zagging around the place and I did have a
difficult time locating my exact space because there
were all kinds of markings all over the place.
Of course, it was a bit on the chilly side and we had
some breezes there. It took us about an hour to
get our canopy up along with the rest of the hardware.
We put all our merchandise inside and covered it up and
left for the motel, where we had a pretty decent night's
sleep. However, we were awakened at around 11:30pm
by a bunch of noisy, screaming, inconsiderate fools out
by the swimming pool area. They managed to retreat
back to their rooms or the jungle, whichever is
appropriate, and we had a very restful, peaceful
remainder of the night.
Saturday, July 17. Dropped by McDonalds and picked
up a couple sausage McMuffins and then headed toward
Cambria on Highway 46 around 6:30am. As we went
over one of the many hills, we could see that
there was some coastal overcast. When we arrived
at the parking lot, it was extremely
overcast and somewhat cool. It took us a couple
hours to get our things set up and we then settled in
for an entire day of slow sales, as did virtually
everybody else.
THERE WERE A TOTAL OF 46 vendor's in the lot and the
booths were arranged in quads with extremely wide
aisles, thank gosh. The crowds were not very large
throughout the day and the people browsing around merely
were out for a day's exercise. There were quite a
number of dogs dragging their owners around and it
seemed like they were more interested in attending this
event than some of the people were.
THE FOOD. Picked up a Bratwurst with Sauerkraut
and onion from one of the two food vendor's for $6.00.
Not bad, but don't compare it to Lockford.
MANY OF THE VENDOR'S had poor sales and were struggling
to make the fee. Occasionally, the sun peaked
through the overcast, but it was nowhere near the 70
degrees as was predicted.
WE CLOSED UP AT 5:00 and headed over to Main Street
Grill down in the other part of town and picked up our
usual Pork Baby Back Ribs along with a salad. When
the guy gave me my order I noticed that the BBQ Sauce
was missing and I brought this to his attention.
He told me 'it was in the bag' and I told him that it
wasn't. He looked in the bag and guess what?
This wasn't the first time these people forgot to give
me BBQ Sauce. We then took our food back to the
motel and ate. It was good.
Sunday, July 18.
Very good night's sleep. We left around 8:05 and
picked up some breakfast at McD's and gassed up at
Chevron and then headed over to '46' and drove over to
Cambria. More overcast and breezy. A bit
cool.
WHEN WE ARRIVED THERE, many of the vendor's had opened
up and there were 2 or 3 people browsing around.
BY THE TIME NOON ROLLED around many of the vendor's were
anxious to pack up and leave. The crowd's weren't
all that great and sale's were on the south side of
pitiful. It's just so disgusting driving this far,
spending two night's in a motel and dealing with the
weather elements and getting so little in return.
These people in Cambria are just plain old cheap and
could care less about these shows.
THE AMERICAN LEGION may have put up a good effort with
this show and the booth fee of $100 was reasonable.
I heard good reports about this event from last year and
I am quite disappointed in it. I think this place
is worn out from all the Craft Shows and the locals
definitely are not interested. Some do pick up
some artwork and the guy selling the cement turtles,
etc., was the only one who did good.
I DON'T THINK that there was an overwhelming amount of
tourists and the one's there did not buy very much.
Not too many bags floating around the place.
All in all, I'm trying to avoid saying that this show
was a doozie and it sucked, but this really was a doozie
and it really did suck.
AFTER WE LEFT CAMBRIA, We hooked up with Highway 101 and
dropped by A&W once again over in Paso Robles and
ordered a couple Papa's and two root beer floats along
with some rings. There was a long line of cars
there and it took quite a while. Wow. Lost
15-20 minutes.
ROAD HAZARDS. Approximately 30 miles from Salinas
we encountered another road hazard. I was in the
left hand lane and there was a truck and a car ahead of
me in the right lane. Suddenly, a small bucket and
other objects leaped out of the bed of a pickup truck
which was over loaded with a BBQ grill, ice chest and a
bunch of other stuff. We both slowed down and made
it around the obstacles as the truck pulled over a
couple hundred yards ahead and the guy was getting out
to perhaps retrieve his stuff. I don't know.
I can't imagine the guy walking out on the highway.
Probably have to wait for the CHP.
WE HIT A LOT OF TRAFFIC around the Monterey exit and
that lasted until San Juan Bautista. Lost maybe
half an hour. Smooth sailing after that.
