It's been a good three weeks here in Paso Robles. The owners, Jennifer and Mark are due back tomorrow and I leave on Thursday morning for Southern California.

The hardest part is leaving the animals! I've grown really attached to these two dogs, Bibi and Buddy and Fluffy, the kitty. They are the sweetest animals, despite Bibi being my 6 o'clock wake up call! She is definitely on a schedule and makes no bones about being hungry, tossing her food bowl around, insisting I get up and fill it! She's deaf so it doesn't really help to tell her "NO!" Buddy doesn't have to do anything except wait. 

Fluffy is a very independent girl, and operates on her own schedule, but loves her cuddles - until she's had enough and then she's off!

Life here mostly revolves around walks and taking the dogs to the beach at Cayucos, which is a fantastic dog beach. But because both dogs have physical issues, we do ambles, rather than walks! But it's a good routine, once in the morning and once in the evening, if it's not too hot! For the first week, it was up over 100F every day, but plummeting to 50F at night, perfect for the grapes the cover the hills here. This morning was the first cloudy morning which didn't last long, burning off by mid-day but only up in the 80s.

Playing Tourist

With Jennifer and Mark's permission, I had visitors! The first weekend Betsy and June came for a couple of days after being in Ventura for the Fair and Santa Barbara for fiesta. We had so much fun wine and olive oil tasting, as this is a huge grape-growing area. It was a real letdown when they left but I had the next weekend to look forward to when Ryan came up for the weekend. And of course, that entailed more tastings, but we also took in the warbirds museum which has a car museum alongside. And we went down to San Luis Obispo (SLO) to visit the mission there.

Every day, I scour the house sitting sites, looking for sits that fit into the blanks on my calendar. Looking into next year, now with a few opportunities beginning to show up. But I have to be on the ball and apply for them immediately as there are a lot of other people applying. So far, I've been fairly lucky with what I have landed and hope that my vigilance pays off.

To keep busy, I visited two distilleries, both of them on vineyards, Krobar and Re:Find. Both make some really good spirits and as usual, it's the people who make the distilleries. Great personalities and so much passion around what they do. I also wrote up a couple more of the Seattle distilleries I visited while there.

It's less than two weeks until I go on assignment up to the Great Bear Rainforest! The time has flown by, but I am looking forward to being on the Passing Cloud again. Once again, going through my clothes, sorting to pack just the minimum to take, which is always a challenge, although you wouldn't think it would be, considering how few clothes I actually have any more.

Last Days

Now it's clean up time, making sure the house is spotless, laundry is done and that I have put everything away where it's supposed to go! I try to keep track during my stay, but every once in a while, it's like "Hmm, I wonder where this lives?" 

And then I think, "I wonder where I live?" I have no answer for that one.