October 17, 2012
Elks Lodge, Santa Maria, California
As always, please feel free to click on any picture to enlarge it.
As always, please feel free to click on any picture to enlarge it.
Continuing our way south, we stopped in Santa Maria, about 30 miles from SLO. No sense rushing!
Like SLO, this was really the first time we’ve stayed in Santa Maria. We’ve been here for shopping before when staying in Buellton or Lompoc, because Santa Maria has the nearest Costco, Trader Joe’s and Best Buy locations.
The Elks Lodge here is on a fairly large property, located (unfortunately) right off US-101. It wasn’t as noisy as SLO, but we did get some traffic sounds. They have two separate RV parking areas, each about a dozen spaces. The “North” side sites have electric and water hookups and the “South” has full hook-ups. Both have 50 Amp power, which is a good thing when the weather gets hot. We definitely needed the air conditioning this time.
We decided to stay a week and this helped us choose to get a full hook-up site. We settled in and made a plan for what we wanted to accomplish during our stay. Although we didn’t cross everything off the list, we did make a dent and saved a few things for next time!
The first order of business was to take advantage of the Lodge’s cook-your-own night. Several Lodges have a “steak night” where you can cook your own. Santa Maria goes further, offering chicken, ribs, and fish in addition to the standard rib-eyes. They have a really nice indoor pit, and our steaks were done in short order.
Our friends Wayne and Eva caught up with us for a couple of days as they’re heading south as well. We took advantage of this to head out for wine tasting and dinner. We went to one of Geri’s favorites, Foley, and arranged for a wine and cheese sit-down tasting. We find these to be much more pleasant and relaxing than stand-up tasting bars.
We also made reservations at Jocko’s in Nipomo for another nice steak dinner. We were a little early for our scheduled time and were seated quickly, which apparently is unusual as waiting is the norm. We watched the Pitmaster through the window, and had great steaks, even if they were a tad overcooked. We’ll know to order differently next time.
I also got out for a couple of nice walks, even though temperatures were a little on the high side. On one walk, I seriously underestimated the distance and ended up with about an eight-mile ramble to the Walmart and back, where I had to pick up a prescription. Telling yourself “It’s only a few more blocks” gets old pretty quickly! But, I survived with no ill effects and can certainly say I need the exercise.
Tonight, we did our travel preparations as we’ll have a longer-than-average drive tomorrow...
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