Happy Trails with Mike & Ellen Taylor

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.