My older sister and brother-in-law live in Los Osos, Ca. on the central California coast. For those not familiar with this area, it's situated between Pismo Beach and Morro Bay which are two very scenic, small town tourist traps. This area of the central California coastline is very popular with folks from the central and southern San Joaquin Valley, mainly Fresno and Bakersfield and everything in between. It's a relatively short drive, (2 1/2 hours), there's lots of fun stuff to do, it's gorgeous, uncrowded compared to southern California beaches, and it's way cooler than the valley during the summer. So people from where I live flock there to play and cool off. Many, including my sister have purchased residences of one kind or another and live there full or part-time.
My wife and I are pretty familiar with the area. In high school, it was already a popular destination for students and their families during spring break and summer vacation. I have some great, and not so great memories of those beaches. Like driving my '67 Camaro along the the beach near the Oceano Dunes. Idiotic, but fun. Night time beach bonfires with friends and free-flowing beer. And getting caught by my minister father while smoking cigarettes with a buddy one night as we walked around town in Pismo acting cool. Boy, did I get the crap slapped out of me that time....in front of my friend....in the back seat of my dad's Mercury. Funny, I didn't feel too cool with my ears ringing and snot running down my upper lip. As we got older and realized we weren't surfers or lovers of sand in our butts anymore, the beach became less of an attraction and we started deep-sea fishing out of several landings in the area. There's not much on this planet that's better tasting than deep fried rock fish, and we caught a bunch over the years. During our 15 years living in north Idaho, one of the things we missed the most about California was the central coast and those fishing trips. Second place would probably be our families. Well, maybe that's just me.
After having been back in Bakersfield for the past year, we decided to take a trip over to the coast this past weekend to visit my sister and her husband and attend the Clam Festival in Pismo Beach. As I mentioned previously, my sister has a place in Los Osos. It's a very small community which is the norm for most of the beach towns in this area. The only time I'd ever been there was was back in 1991 for a week-long camping trip at a place called Camp K.E.E.P. with a group of at-risk juveniles. I did this when I was a D.A.R.E. Officer with the Bakersfield P.D. During that stay, I never really saw any of the town. We took the kids on a walk to the beach one day, but the place is a nature preserve, so basically you can't touch or step on anything. Great fun for the kids.
Fast forward to last weekend. I suppose due to ignorance and the passage of time, I envisioned Los Osos as being a stereotypical beach town.....older, tidy homes and yards, built in very close proximity to one another, and many of them being either right on the beach or very close....close enough to walk to or ride a bike to. And plenty of spendy town homes and condo complexes in the mix. And some strip malls and trendy tourist shops. And a beach. Duh, why wouldn't you expect one there? You're at the beach, right? Boy, was I in for a surprise when we drove into town and started looking for my sister's place. I mean it's a shock. You pass through San Luis Obispo, a great little college town, on the way there, and then WHAM! You're in Los Osos. Oh, it had homes that are older and close together all right, but frankly, there was nothing neat or tidy about any of them. The place is run down and shabby. At least the parts that we saw. Unkempt yards and cars up on blocks on some of the front yards. And the streets were almost all in horrible condition. Driving around there is like trying to navigate around one of those Halloween corn mazes. We got a little lost later that day trying to figure out how to get to Morro Bay, and we asked a USPS letter carrier for directions. Even she had a hard time trying to explain how to escape this grungy little neighborhood. Oh, and the Schwan's salesman in the big yellow truck kept driving in circles like he was lost too. Could this be the real location of the infamous "Devil's Triangle"? I almost expected to see Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame standing on a street corner staring eerily at me, like I was the putz that was going to "get screwed" by some paranormal phenomenon at the end of the episode.
On the positive side, we finally made it to my sister's place which is in in one of those 55 and older communities with modular and manufactured homes. It's pretty nice, at least what we saw. A lot nicer than the rest of what passed for homes in that town. But there's no visible business area. No stores or shops, very few places to eat, and almost no tourists, which I guess is a good thing if you want total peace and quiet. She's living very near the preserve I mentioned....it looked more like a prehistoric swamp to me. And as for the beach, well, there isn't one in Los Osos. At least not the kind you find in every other beach community in the area. Because it's a preserve dummy! Like jelly! At night, if you hold your breath, you can sort of hear surf breaking on a beach somewhere in the distance. There's a walking path near her home that will take you through the swamp, I mean preserve, but as I mentioned earlier, you're not supposed to touch anything. You probably wouldn't want to anyway. I think most of the native plant's names begin with "Poison" this or that.
No comments:
Post a Comment