Sharing the Road Should Work Both Ways

Today I drove to Cambria to beat the heat. I took my photo walk along the coastline. The temperature there was only in the high seventies or low eighties. At home, it was in the triple digits.

Guess Who's Not Sharing the Road

After I'd spent time at the beaches and taken lots of photos, which I will be sharing in future posts, I started south again on Moonstone Drive's scenic route. Unfortunately, a group of six or seven cyclists was just ahead of me. You can see them in the photo above.

Please notice the wide area to the right of the cyclists. Just over that white line is a bike lane, and there is even more space to the right of the bike lane. There is a law that cyclists are to ride single file on public roads. That doesn't look like single file to me. I could not cross that double yellow line without violating a law myself, so  I was forced to drive at a crawl behind these fellows.

The fellows weren't kids. One had gray hair and the others appeared to be in their thirties or forties. They were definitely old enough to know better than to hog the road. There were also cars behind me that were forced to creep for almost a mile behind these guys until they finally decided to do the right thing and pull over to let us pass.

Everywhere I drive in my community, I see signs that say "Share the road." That should not apply only to those in motor vehicles. There's a reason motorists sometimes resent those on bicycles, and these men demonstrate that reason. It's one thing when the road is narrow and there are no bike lanes. In that case, there's no alternative to creeping behind a bike until it has room to pull over or the motorist gets to a place where passing is not dangerous. As you can see, this was not the case here.

Please, cyclists, be as courteous to the cars behind you as you would want them to be to you.

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A Vivid Sign to Encourage Safe Driving at Finley Family Nursery

If you've never been east of the Salinas River in Templeton, you haven't yet explored El Pomar Drive or discovered Finley Family Nursery. It makes an interesting drive in the country if you'd like to discover some new territory. I can show you some of that another day.

One distinctive thing I've seen right as you approach Finley Family Nursery from the south is this car.  If you click on the photo it will enlarge, but you will still need very good eyes to see what is written under the bumper: SLOW DOWN. I think the wrecked car gets the point across well for those who want to speed down these country roads.

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A Short Trip to Solvang

Sunday we took a short trip to have lunch with longtime friends who live in Westlake. We try to see each other every  year in June, and we meet right in the middle between our cities. So we go to Solvang. We were to meet at the Greenhouse Cafe at 1:30. It got its name because it used to be a greenhouse.

Things don't always happen the way one plans  them, and so it was on Sunday. We

made a pit stop at Smart and Final in San Luis Obispo and our gear shift got stuck. That meant we were also stuck -- until The Auto Club came to the rescue. Our friends waited in Santa Barbara until we knew whether we could continue on. We were very thankful one of the AAA men who answered our call figured out what was wrong, got it working, and told us it was probably safe to proceed, so we called our friends back and we all continued on our way.

As it turned out, we got to the cafe first and saved a table inside. It was warm out and I'm sun sensitive, so I preferred to eat inside instead of at an outside table. We had a grand time catching up with each other's lives and stayed at the table until the restaurant closed at 5 PM. Then we talked for another hour outside. I took these photos from the corner as we talked. I feel like I've gone back in time when I am here. Click on any photo to enlarge it.

There Are Worse Places than Highway 46 West for a Car to Break Down

My husband inherited an old Ford Galaxy from his dad. It's been sitting on our property for at least 15 years, and most of that time it hasn't run because it just sits there. Once in a while he tries to sell it, and gets it running, but when the sale doesn't go through, it just sits there until the next time.

In the past two weeks he found a buyer, but he has had to get the car back in decent shape. That project has been going on for at least three weeks. He thought it was finished, but then a gasket broke between the manifold and the engine block and he told me he was taking the car to the shop and he'd call if he needed to be picked up. About 11:30 he called me to pick him up on 46 West a little east of Anderson Road.

He'd had all sorts of problems. The first shop he had taken it to said they   didn't want to do the job. Then he ran out of gas on the way to the second shop and had to call the auto club to rescue him. After that he went to a second mechanic, who didn't have time to do the job. He decided to go home, and halfway there on 46 West the brakes went out. So he called me. I got there before the auto club and knew there would be a wait, so I got out my camera (I never leave home without it) and decided to make the best of whatever photo opportunites were in front of me. Directly in front of me was this sign in the Tooth and Nail Vineyard.

After the tow truck finally showed up, Hubby had to  talk to the driver for a few minutes, so I looked around for more photo subjects. I loved the way the clouds seemed to be almost touching this vineyard and the oaks on the south side of 46 West, so I snapped this from across the highway.

I've always loved the contrast between the hay-colored fields and the green vineyards in June when the two are side-by-side. I've always wanted this photo, but never had a place to legally park to shoot it. In today's emergency, we had to park in the bike lane while we waited. Fortunately, there were no bikers needing to use it while we were there. As you can see, there are worse places to have a car break down. At least the scenery is good. And Pete Johnson's towing isn't far away, either.

Where is the last place you can remember being stranded to wait for a tow truck?

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