We celebrated Ellen's birthday at San Juan Bautista, going out to eat at a great Mexican restaurant--almost as good as Chachi's in Kingwood! During our week here, we discovered a beautiful county park on Coyote Lake, and took a wonderful long hike through twisted old oak trees and lovely meadows. The dogs' favorite part of the hike was the discovery of an old deer carcass!

One of the highlights of our week was a drive on another section of the Pacific Coast Highway--out on the Monterey Peninsula. On the way there, we stopped at Laguna Seca Raceway to look around, and got to watch some test drives: Corvettes, Porsches, Ferraris, Mustangs, Lotii and Minis! Thc pictures of our day are posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/TxMike3 What a spectacular drive overlooking the Bay and the Pacific Ocean! We both decided the 17 Mile Drive is one of the most beautiful places we've ever seen. In case any of you are interested, there are lots of houses for sale there. We walked around a bit at Pebble Beach, just to gawk.

One day we decided to check out another stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz. It was pretty but I guess we're getting spoiled because it was less than spectacular, so we decided to cut inland at Half Moon Bay. We ended up on a little twisty two lane highway that runs through the redwood forest along the top ridge of the Santa Cruz mountains...in the fog! It was occasionally clear enough that we got some gorgeous views of the whole South Bay area including San Jose and Palo Alto. It was Friday afternoon so there were also lots of bicycle and motorcycle riders enjoying the drive, including a pack of 6 or 8 guys on hopped-up mopeds.

Some asides about our trip so far: When you're RV-ing, an $18 haircut is just as good as a $40 one. The huge eucalyptus trees that are all over California shed their bark in long strips like a peeled carrot, and even though the leaves are long and slender, they smell just like that stuff you can get at Michael's. Almond and cherry tree orchards are gorgeous when they're in bloom. Driving up a mountain hugging the cliff side is much easier than winding back down on the outside lane looking down into steep canyons. You can't successfully brush a hairy dog when the humidity is below 30%. From Max: those ground squirrels are much hard to catch than our tree squirrels at home. From Gracie: being on the bed is my rightful place and I can't believe you'd put up that baby gate when you leave us in the RV. Peacocks are not welcome alarm clocks at 6:00 a.m. Even though we're technically on vacation, we still have to do laundry and go to the grocery store!

Tuesday the 24th we moved up a little north of San Francisco to a pretty KOA. We're close to wine country, Muir Woods, and more Pacific Coast Highway. More to come so please stay tuned. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them here or email us.

We are currently between San Juan Bautista and Gilroy, CA near the Monterey Peninsula. We're a little south of San Francisco and San Jose, and looking forward to driving some more of the California coast. Mike wants to see Pebble Beach, and the dogs are hoping there's another dog beach somewhere! It's beautiful here--high, green rolling hills and lots of cherry and almond trees and vineyards (of course).

In case you were wondering...Gilroy is the Garlic Capital of the World! There's also the largest fruit stand in California here--Casa de Fruta--and an enchanting place called "Casa de
Something for Everybody." Honest!

We got here Saturday after visiting Matt and Anna in Bakersfield. We had a great dinner with them and enjoyed playing catch with Quinton. Unfortunately Marcel was sick and the poor little guy slept on the couch almost the whole evening. Enzo looks great, maybe a little grayer but still going strong (kinda like us ;))! He remembered Mike and was really excited to see him, and to hear about his ol' flyball pals.

Okay, we're waaay behind on our updates, but we've been busy and having lots of fun.

We drove from San Diego right through the middle of Los Angeles on I-5 to the little farming town of Santa Paula just east of Ventura. The drive was less than 200 miles but with the traffic it took us around 4 1/2 hours! Santa Paula is a really pretty little farming town; there were LOTS of citrus groves all around us, and many strawberry fields. We stayed at an RV park a few miles outside of town that was more like a state park, it was so beautiful! We drove down the Pacific Coast Highway one day to Malibu...beautiful! There appear to be lots of high priced real estate for sale in Malibu.

The next day we took a whale watching tour from Ventura out into the Santa Barbara Channel near the Channel Islands National Park. We were lucky--it was a beautiful day and we saw quite a few Pacific Gray whales. These whales migrate each year from the Arctic to Baja to mate and have their calves, and then back again to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic. It's a 6,000 mile round trip they make every year. We also saw pelicans, seals, sea lions, and enjoyed watching the dolphins play around our boat. We posted lots of pictures in our web albums; check them out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/TxMike3

Right now we are in Paso Robles about midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and inland about 25 miles. This area is definitely wine country. We have visited several of the hundreds of wineries, and enjoyed the free wine tastings! The weather here is ideal for vineyards, lots of sunshine, warm days and cool nights. We also took a long drive up the coast highway to Big Sur and Carmel and back. It was another beautiful day, the scenery was spectacular, and driving the highway itself was quite an adventure! The elephant seal beach was a fun surprise.

Tomorrow we're on to Bakersfield to visit our flyball friends, Matt and Anna, then we'll be moving up the coast to just south of San Francisco, near Monterey. See you in a week or so.

This week in sunny San Diego...

We've spent a week relaxing in Santee Lakes Recreation Area on the northeast side of San Diego. We took a long walk on Mission Trail, walked at a city park, took the dogs to a city dog park, and went to the San Diego Zoo. We had been here when Dan and Gwen were young, and were excited to go back. What a beautiful zoo! We posted a few of our pictures.

Our last day in Santee, we took the dogs to Ocean Beach to the "dog beach". Dogs are not allowed on public beaches in California except for designated dog beaches. We had a blast...Gracie played frisbee on the beach and in the water, and Max ran and played with all the other dogs. Gracie didn't like getting sand in her mouth, so after she picked up the frisbee she would carry it into the water to wash it off. We took some pictures; you can check them out in our web albums.

After lunch we left the dogs in the trailer and went to La Jolla to the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It was really a cool aquarium specializing in the aquatic life of the Pacific coast from the northwest down to Baja. There were many wonderful, interesting exhibits and tanks. One of our favorites was an interactive table with facts about different species of whales found in the Pacific, and you could listen to the sounds that they make. The aquarium is in the hills above the north end of La Jolla cove. The view from their observation deck alone was worth the price of admission. We wandered around La Jolla for a little while later in the afternoon. It's one of the most beautiful and unique towns I've ever seen.

Tomorrow we head north a short distance to near Santa Barbara. Rain is in the forecast for the first time on our trip.