An Interesting Golf outing and Pismo Beach

On February 28, we got our normally slow start. It was kind of windy, but we had blue skies and sun. I decided to go for a walk around the regional park. It is really a nice park with a botanical garden and lots of trails to walk on. I decided to walk over to the pro shop to see what it cost to play golf expecting it to be more money than I wanted to spend. I was shocked to see that I could play after twilight for $14 for as much as I wanted to play. It was just after 2 and I was sure I could get at least 9 in before it became too dark. I thought about getting a cart, but I really wanted to see if all the hiking I have been doing would allow me to walk without too much trouble. The guy in the golf shop did say it was a very hilly course. He also said the greens are great, but there are some wet spots from the recent rains. What he didn't tell me about was all of the wildlife on the course.

I went back to the trailer and grabbed my clubs. We have been carrying them this trip and I have not used them once. I have been playing Wii golf and I hoped that would help with the muscles. It is amazing, but I am sure it did. I was not the slightest bit sore the next day.

I walked out to the first hole and could immediately see what I was faced with. Big ups and downs and beautiful green grass. I then saw the turkeys. Yes, Wild Turkeys! Right on the fairway. There must have been about 10 of them. I would see them off and on throughout the round. They seemed to have very little fear of me.

At this point the turkeys had moved off of the fairway.

The course was very interesting with a number of difficult shots to target areas. I did not expect to play well, and I didn't, but I did manage a par on the Par 5 #7 and hit a excellent tee shot on the short par 3 over water #8. I did shoot a 52 if you must know. Mostly bogeys and double bogeys and one bad hole that included a 4 putt. The greens were in excellent shape and very fast with very significant breaks. You really had to read them and I missed a few of those reads and ended up hitting some putts that ended up further from the hole than I started. Oh well, I was having fun just playing along with the course all to myself.

Par 5 #7 - Made par on this one.

In the picture above you can see a large flock of Coots. I also saw quail and ducks and a few other birds. It really was a wildlife show.

I finished my first 9 and headed out to play a few more before dark. As it turned out 2 more was about all I had in me.

It was a fun outing and I am not really sure why I don't play more golf. In some cases it is the money, I am not going to spend over $100 for a round of golf, but that is not it. I really enjoy the game and thought when I retired, I would play more. I did play a lot of golf when I was working and maybe it reminds me of those times and I would rather not remember.

I spoke with the guy in the golf shop and he told me that the number of people that play golf in the US is declining sharply. The young people are just not playing the game. Maybe the cost? We have seen a number of golf courses in our travels that are closed. I guess they are too expensive to maintain if they do not have the players.

On March 1, we decided to head over to Pismo Beach and check out the area. Pismo was only about 15 miles from El Chorro Regional Park. The Pismo beach area is a typical congested beach community. They have a pier and lots of surf shops and other businesses along the water front and the main street. It would be a nice place for a walk if you are into that sort of thing. We really aren't, so we saved the parking cost and moved on to the beach.

The beach area is normally open to camping. You can drive right on the beach and then ride your OHV in the dunes just south of the area. The recent storms had the beaches closed to vehicle traffic. I understand that a river had cut the beach off. We did find a place to park and took a walk on the beach. This is really more our kind of thing.

Another picture of Kim on a beach. You would think the poor girl would be tired of beaches by now. 

There were a number of people fishing in the surf.

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed seeing the area. We stopped in town to buy propane and paid the $3.25 per gallon for a bottle fill up. We paid $2.00 per gallon in Quartzsite. The price at this station had not changed in a long time. Why is that? I guess it is all about competition. Just one of my pet peeves.

Well that is about it for our visit to the SLO area. We had about a week before we are meeting our daughter and SIL along with little Amelia in San Francisco. We are really excited about that. We were only about 250 miles away. We needed a place to stay through the next weekend and we wanted to make a visit to Pinnacles National Park. We found this place that was free. It is BLM land and only had 5 sites, but they said it was OK for big rigs. There was a steep winding road to get there and the elevation was 2880 feet. We decided to go for it. This is where the adventure begins. We had no idea what we were getting into. I will write about that adventure in my next entry.