Paso Robles, California: I apologize profusely to any Reader who happened to look at my column late last night within five minutes of my posting. I did not notice the very politically incorrect flag flying over one of the RVs Dave had photographed during his Halloween decoration photo-shoot. It was immediately removed (by me)… and then I noticed another one in another photo. Again, removed. You also missed campers driving through this resort in golf carts “pretending” to be ICE agents, using blow-horns asking people for their papers. Halloween costume fail. They thought they were so funny, and ICE is NOT FUNNY - especially here. What a bunch of a$$hats. They had children on their golf carts!
Happy Halloween, kiddos!
That said, Dave found the best-of-the-best Halloween decorated campsite this morning while on his morning exercise:
I can’t figure how people brought all this stuff with them. Halloween weekend is huge at this campground. Checking-in, we received a flyer to reserve our site for Halloween next year (it’s on a Saturday). Plan ahead!
Our adventure today was to spend the day in Paso Robles, so we Ubered to town. The huge town square was hosting a Day of the Dead celebration with craft booths, food booths, entertainment, and today is also the weekly Farmers Market. So much to see.
There was plenty to see and do at the Day of the Dead celebration and we had so much talking to and learning from the food vendors. One farmer was selling what seemed to be miniature Delicata squash, but they were, in fact, Tetra squash from Row 7, a seed company devoted to creating interesting vegetables for chefs. I can’t wait to do something with these babies when we get home. Delicata is a great squash - the skin is edible. Little wasted with this variety.
After taking a long walk around town, window shopping and familiarizing ourselves again with the cute town, we settle on a nice restaurant on the square, The Alchemists Garden.
This cafe offer “group” cocktails (note glass dispenser on table above). How fun, but sadly with only two people… we would have missed the 4p Duck football game (due to being asleep).
Paso Robles has a lot going on. There are so many vineyards that have fabulous farm-to-table menus, and there are so many tasting rooms in town. Shopping is fantastic, hotels are great, and the entire area is very pretty, well-kept, family - and dog - friendly.
Just as we arrived back to our RV and started watching the Duck game, there was an incident at the campsite next to us. Our neighbors are camped with several groups and had gathered one-site-over to talk, party and (several slow-cookers were brought out…) eat. They were having fun and a bit loud, but not so loud we needed to close our window. Two men, wearing yellow safety vests and carrying walkie-talkies, stopped in a golf cart in front of our neighbors site. The two men stepped out and asked to speak to the site renters. The Yellow Vest said there had been complaints about the noise coming from their site and asked for their paperwork. The woman brought their receipt out to Yellow Vest. The husband of the woman must have said something snarky to Yellow Vest because the renter was told his attitude was not appreciated. The people in the group were all gathering around Yellow Vest, explaining there were tons of campsites noisier than theirs (so true) and what was the deal? Then Yellow Vest caved. He had punked them, and proceeded to whip-out a bottle of tequila, offering a swig as an apology. Everyone cracked up - as did we (gawking from our RV window). We had talked with our neighbors last evening and they were nice, and I was figuring out how I was going to tell her it wasn’t us who had complained! Dang, if that wasn’t a good prank - I guess their friends had set it up.
Our evening was spent watching the Ducks and the Dodgers. The Ducks beat Wisconsin in a monsoon, and the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays so the series is tied 1-1. I made nachos from last night’s leftovers. Trick-or-Treaters came by all night, but we had our lights off and did not decorate, so were left alone.
Until my next update, I remain, your Paso Robles correspondent.
Campground Information: Sun Outdoors Paso Robles.