Rancho Oso

We started out from LaVerne at 7:00 Friday morning thinking we needed to go 200 miles. Once on the road we found it was only 140 miles… what a great opportunity to stop and check in on my sister and brother-in-law in Camarillo! Nancy recently broke her leg and Dave had bypass surgery two weeks ago, so a visit was just what we all needed!

We got back on the road and headed north. We were once again reminded that Southern California traffic SUCKS!

We arrived at Thousand Trails Rancho Oso at about 12:30, found a spot and set up the trailer. It is beautifully set in the hills between Santa Barbara and Solvang, near the Santa Ynez River (which is dry) It’s a unique place where you can of course bring your pets, but you can also bring your horse! And here’s the real surprise…. lots of people being their horse. Luckily they have their own area and were not camped next to horses!

This afternoon we went to an “event” at the stables and watched people ride their horses in mock rodeo events. There was this tiny girl on a huge horse and the story is that the horse was considered not rideable until he met her and she’s now able to ride him! You can see how tiny she is in the pictures.

We came back to camp and cooked dinner, played some Yahtzee…(I scored 3 Yahtzees in ONE game!) watched a movie and called it a night.

Saturday’s plan was to go to Solvang for aebleskiver breakfast. What we didn’t know was that “Danish Days” was this weekend and the place was packed! I thought all breakfast places served aebleskivers so we picked one, waited 30 minutes and found out the didn’t offer them! Oh well, we had a nice breakfast and came back to camp.

Before coming back we checked out an RV Park Chad found…very fancy with cottages, air stream rentals and RV camping. Looked fun and definitely not as rustic as Rancho Oso, but the place we’re staying really let’s us unwind!

They had an ice cream social on Saturday afternoon in this very cool stone house so of course, diet or not we stopped by! To make ourselves feel better about it, we took a long walk down to where the river should have been!

Here’s something fun… There are tons of wild turkey’s here! Not to mention quite a few quail.

Sunday morning we decided to go learn how to play pickle ball. Now since I’ve never been very good at tennis or racquetball, you can only imagine how this went! Since we were where the games were we played a round of miniature golf…although I’m not heading out on the LPGA, it was still fun. Tom got a hole in one on the first hole! (of course he did!)

Later in the day we met our neighbors Chuck and Jecca, a wonderful couple originally from Ojai who have been living and traveling in their RV for 16 years! We visited with them for a few hours …it was delightful!

Chuck gave Tom some helpful tips especially regarding antenna for cell service and TV streaming. Although it was fun unplugging for the weekend, I would like to have the option of staying connected.

Monday morning we said goodbye to Chuck and Jecca and headed home.