What in the World is Wrong With US?!!?

Like something out of the Keystone Cops Barry and I made several valiant attempts to get out of the house and back on the road.  A predicted departure of January 10^th turned into the 11^th when we couldn’t get our act together enough to transport our undies from the house to the rolling tourbus – don’t ask I don’t know why.  We agonized over decisions regarding matching socks, shirts and outerwear – would we be too warm – too cold, or was it the addition of shiny new pairs of matching hearing aids that threw everything into chaos? The 11^th found us obsessing over the adequacy of cellphone charging cords, completion of cruise documents and packing and repacking of aforementioned undies, outerwear and shirts. Sheesh!  Finally, and with much fanfare, we departed our little house for the Great Tourbus Adventure – Part IV.  

We got as far as Walnut Avenue (those of you who know where we live will have unnecessarily harsh comments about this, I’m sure) whereupon the batteries on someone’s hearing aids quit – dead – nada – nothing but beep, beep, beep and although I hesitate to admit this, we couldn’t find even one of the three, 

count ‘em three, Costco-size packs of hearing aid 

batteries that we had carefully loaded for the trip…

A brief stop at Walgreens, a small second mortgage worth of diesel and we’re finally headed out of town until recognition hits that Beth’s shoes have, once again, been left behind – I can only surmise that it was all the turmoil over socks that left the shoes high and dry back in the closet.  It is my preference that all the so-called friends and family reading this post not speculate unduly about what might be wrong with us – this is something even we do not wish to contemplate.

Our actual first leg of the trip was unremarkable and we arrived at a previously unvisited RV Park called Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton.  We came armed with the gastronomical recommendations of Scott and Lynn who frequent the area regularly and ran like starving Armenians to our first meal at Industrial Eats right here in Buellton.  House cured meats, imported cheeses, incredible creativity and cookies as big as your head made for a deliciously memorable meal.  We rolled (literally, I mean we had to roll ourselves) back into our rolling home and were promptly greeted by a phone call from a rather concerned young house-sitter (our beloved granddaughter Maddie) who wanted to know if we were perhaps going to need the passports she had found sitting by the computer…OMG!!! REALLY??!!? What the heck is WRONG with us?!!? (That, by the way, is a completely rhetorical question – no answers needed or even wanted – remember we aren’t interested in actually contemplating the solution to that problem.) 

After a second frantic phone call to Maddie’s mother a plan was formulated for forwarding the essential passports to our final destination in the hopes that sooner or later we’d get our acts together enough to get aboard the ship that awaits at the end of this tourbus adventure.  Now I will warn intrepid readers that this ship departs from San Juan, Puerto Rico which has all kinds of go wrong potential but that is a story for different day.   

Anyway, we figured after our three-day ordeal of getting out of town maybe just a good rest and some additional fine dining would be in order.  We started the day with a personalized tour of the Flying Flags Resort, which I gotta say was a lot cooler than it might sound – this place is really fabulous – this guy owns this string of RV parks  (Moab and Borego Springs and Silver Lake and Coos Bay and Crescent Lake and Salt Lake) that sport not only top notch RV sites but themed cabins, safari tents, and…wait for it….rentable vintage trailers!  We got to peek and poke and plan a future family get-together.  The rest of the day was spent doing the tourist thing in Los Olivos with lunch at Sides Hardware, yup, that’s Sides Hardware – home of the best bacon burger EVER devised.

The ingestion of the burger dictated a brief rest at the motorhome where we began discussing why there was a powerful, permeating smell of salami every single time the rig refrigerator was opened.  Lots of speculation – few answers…

All was forgotten however as we approached the Holy Grail of Central Coast culinary adventure – a little, side of the road place called Succulent Café.  Where oh where does one start to describe this wonderful hunk of deliciousness?  

With Scott’s long-distance coaching assistance we ordered the charcuterie board (supposedly for two but completely capable of feeding a high school football team) loaded with duck prosciutto, mustard infused cheddar cheese, some kind of melt-in-your mouth blue cheese and pickled veggies, dried fruits and olives – oh my! 

We figured that the next order needed to be slightly more conservative so we summoned up a roasted fresh beet salad with hazelnuts, Humboldt Fog cheese and a raspberry dressing and a second dish of roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon.  Well, there is no really adequate description but lets just say that there wasn’t a main dish to follow – there was absolutely not one square millimeter of internal space to stuff one additional morsel – at least there wasn't until they reviewed the dessert menu and announced – wait – wait – wait for it:  the maple ice cream, salted caramel and BACON sundae!!!! Whaaaaat?!!?  

 

So friends, family, horrified on-lookers we hope that once again you will brave the Excellent Tourbus Adventure with us as we venture into the great asphalt jungle of highways and byways of our little trip.  We'd love to have you along so please feel free to post questions, comments and observations.  Also, don't forget -- this is Beth's "Sure to Return Home" insurance - Barry can't leave me by the side of the road if you're all watching.  Let us hear from you!