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Friday, March 1, 2013 — The Weekender
TRAVEL
Nostalgic tour of the Central Coast
TEHACHAPI NEWS PHOTOS BY CLAUDIA ELLIOTT
ABOVE: Driving on the beach continus to be a favorite pastime in Oceano; AT LEFT: A view of Morro Rock from the natural history museum at Morro Bay State Park. BY CLAUDIA ELLIOTT TEHACHAPI NEWS
Having spent most of my life in Central California, ranging from Tehachapi north to Hanford and Porterville and west to San Luis Obispo County, the Central Coast feels to me like an extension of home, just as I think it must to our California Condors. Yet every so often I meet someone in Tehachapi who might have been to Morro Bay or Pismo once, but doesn’t really know our coastal territory. So this story is for both types of readers — those who have years of memories of trips to “our coast” and those who don’t know what they’re missing. The Central Coast might be considered from Santa Barbara to Monterey, but for me it is the coastline of San Luis Obispo County, stretching from Oceano Beach on the south to San Simeon on the north. I love this stretch of coastline for its natural beauty and for its memories. While you can take in the entire length on a weekend, we usually just pick a few favorite places — and often find something new to enjoy, as well. On a recent trip, my husband Chuck put up with my desire to reminisce, so we started out at Oceano, where I lived from second through sixth grade. In those days, my dad worked construction and was often out of work in the winter, so the daily routine was that he would pick us kids up after school and
we would spend the afternoon on the beach while our mom was at work. Dad would go clamming while we played in the dunes or made sandcastles in the damp sand closer to the water and then we’d head home where he’d have a pot of simmering chowder ready by dinner time. Of course, at the time I didn’t realize how lucky we were. Playing on the beach every afternoon was just part of life. And driving on the beach didn’t seem unusual at all. In those days there were three beach ramps — one at Oceano, another at Grover City (the town’s original name) and another at Pismo. You could drive for miles. On our recent trip we learned you now have to pay $5 for a day pass and can only travel a relatively short distance. Still people seemed to be having a great time. Other than the beach, there is not that much to do in Oceano, but the Great American Melodrama theater is located there, away from the beach on Highway One, and that is quite a fun place. Oceano is an old working town; when I was a kid the passenger train stopped there and it is still a hub for local agriculture which includes strawberries. But other than a few tourist attractions, it doesn’t look much different from some poor ag communities in the San Joaquin Valley. We drove around Oceano to see the house where we once lived (my par-
ents paid less than $10,000 in 1958 and the house seemed large to us; now it seems really small and you is probably worth $250,000 — and that’s after the price drop). Who could have known? Pismo Beach Next we headed to Pismo Beach. When our kids were teenagers, Pismo was the place they wanted to be when we went to the coast. And one thing I’ve noticed about Pismo is that if you’re from somewhere in Central California, you can almost count on running into someone you know walking down the street in Pismo if you’re there
on the weekend. Yes, happened on this trip, too. Fortunately, we didn’t have any teenagers along and didn’t have to wait in the long line at the popular Splash Cafe. We passed up some other eateries we’ve enjoyed through the years and headed up from the pier to the Pismo Brewing Company. We didn’t know what to expect, but found that it was a small operation in an old house with a comfortable atmosphere. Chuck tried one of their local brews, I had a root beer float and we took advantage of the checker game to take See CENTRAL COAST TOUR • Page 5
The once funky beach town of Cayucos has been spiffed up within the past few years with old-time facades and bright paint.