Randy and Connie's Day Off

There’s an old adage that says something like, “All work and no play makes Randy and Connie tired and proves that they aren’t dealing with a full deck”. So as not to be iconoclastic, we took a day off from tending Rancho Relaxo and went west for some R&R.

Those of you who are rather savvy know that, from here, you can’t go all that far west until you run  into a natural barrier that some folks call the Pacific Ocean (while others call it Mar Pacifica but we won’t go there for now and will reserve comment for another blog called “Randy’s Rant Roost”). That was our destination, the big blue Pacific Ocean.

To be specific, it was a little quaint but bustling little burg called Pismo Beach. I’m not sure but, I think that the town was named after San Luis O’Pismo  who was the Irish Catholic second cousin by marriage to well known San Luis Obispo whose town is 8 miles away. It is rumored that Luis named the town after the 5 pound namesake pet clam that he dug up from the local beach.

Pismo has long been noted as a place to rent a boogey board, an ATV with which to try to kill oneself on the sand dunes, and a great place to pig out on fish and chips, clam chowder, coffee latte’, or a myriad of other things that may please the palate. You can also dig to your hearts content for the local bivalves.

We didn’t drive. Oh, no. That takes far too long and we didn’t want to spend all of our time on the highway dodging people whose IQ test turned out negative but who have nonetheless been given a drivers license. And, it seems that, as I approach being “aged to mellowness”, it is no longer great fun to cradle my over-weight middle-aged airframe squarely on my buttocks for hours at a time. In fact, as time progresses, it takes greater and greater effort to remove the flat spots from my heiny after a long trip in a car.

What did we do, you ask? We rented a Cessna 172 and flew over there, of course. I’ve been flying with Western Air in Visalia for quite some time (previously Sierra Aviation). They have a couple of Cessna 172’s, a Cessna 150 (which I refuse to fly except solo since it’s incapable of flight with more than two cups of gas when two people are aboard) and a Piper Warrior. The plane was scheduled in advanced for the day so all we had to do was show up.

Ah, yes…the details. Prior to showing up, we did greet the morning soon enough. It wasn’t exactly the crack of dawn. It was more like the widened fissure of developed sunshine or such. It took a couple of doses of strong coffee latte’ (from my new Breville espresso maker) right straight in the eyes to initiate forward ambulation.

The plan was to depart the house in time to be at the airport at 0830 hrs local time so we could prep the plane and saddle up for departure at approximately 0900 hrs. However (there’s always a “however”, eh?), I double checked the weather for our route and it confirmed my suspicions. I had called the Flight Service Station (FSS) the previous evening for an “extended briefing” for our planned route. The forecast didn’t sound all that bad but it still sounded a bit “iffy” to me. My experience with flying to the coast led me to believe that there was a significant possibility that there would be coastal fog and weather that would “burn off” around 11 AM or just a bit after that. That turned out to be exactly the case. The “standard briefing” that morning confirmed my concerns. Soooooo…..we just downshifted and took our time loading the van and preparing for the trip and left the house at about 8:30 AM. The extra latte’ (home-brewed with a special coffee mix) was greatly appreciated.

We drove the 42 miles to the Visalia airport contemplating and discussing the possibilities of the day and the adventures that it could bring.  Because Porterville no longer has an FBO (fixed base operator) that rents aircraft, a trip to Visalia was cursory. This is almost mind boggling given the fact that Porterville has had an FBO continually from 1955 until 1995. It was almost a no-brainer because Porterville Municipal Airport has a 5908’ x 150’ runway and had plenty of room for practice areas et. al.. The location is ideal for flight instruction. It had been a USAAF bomber and fighter base during WW2.

For reasons not completely understood by this private pilot, interest in general aviation seems to be on the decline so there simply aren’t enough student pilots to warrant flight instruction at our airport. It is sad to report that there is only one flight instructor available who is on call. If I have my way about it, there will be two by next year.

After arriving at KVIS, we headed to the office of the FBO (Western Air). It doesn’t take long to pre-flight a C-172. And, the FBO filled the tanks and de-bugged the windscreen prior to our arrival. So, we had only to toss our flight bag and some jackets on board then strap in.

The nice thing about this old bird (N96836), was that she had a spiffy new Garmin GPS-430 stuck in her instrument panel. The 430 is to airplanes as the astrolabe was to ships. This beauty will keep you apprised of everything while en-route but the TV channel the folks below you are watching! You dial in your destination airport and it will not only direct you there, but will show you alternate airports and has VOR navigational capabilities! It’s a great buy for a mere 5, 000 dollars (the Garmin 530 is 15, 000 bucks, so the 430 is a real steal!).

Our departure turned out to be at 1005 hrs. The local weather showed scattered clouds to the west as was forecast by the FSS. We climbed above them to smoother air and parked at 6,500’. In an hour we were nose to nose with the Oceano Airport (just a few miles south of Pismo which doesn’t have its own airport). The landing was passable. But, due to the stiff offshore wind, it wasn’t quite the “squeeker” that I had desired. We did walk away from our arrival at 1105 hrs.

What do you do when you go someplace in an airplane and don’t have even a bicycle or Avis waiting for you? You walk. Oh, great. My body has a difficult time hauling itself around Wal-Mart and now I’m making it walk from the airport to beautiful downtown Oceano six blocks away!

I hadn’t been to Oceano since flying there in 1999. The buildings were actually about the same. However, someone forgot to keep the same businesses and restaurants the same! Connie and I wanted to suck up a bit of clam chowder but the place I had in mind was now being used for a storage shed. The rest of the businesses rented ATV’s.

We moseyed up the hill to the old liquor store that was there in ’68 when I flew there for the first time and which will likely be there until the Millennium. The nice lady there advised that we could dine at the Mexican restaurant two blocks east or hike a couple blocks further south from the Mexican place to the “Rock N Roll Diner”. Mexican food was not our first choice because we had recently knocked over a local place call “China’s Alley” so we weren’t much interested in “comida Mexicana”. Plus, we’re at the coast, for crying out loud! Let’s do seafood!

Given such options (which included calling a cab but …there was no cell phone service there!!), we strolled on over to the “Rock N Roll Diner”. We purposely ate a light breakfast so that we would be hungry when we got to our destination. Also, we ate light so we wouldn’t have to land on a distant alfalfa field halfway to the coast for “relief”.

The diner was a hoot! The restaurant was two train dining cars hooked together with other buildings glued to them for support. The interior was 100% a blast from the past. The walls were plastered with vintage movie bills and rock and roll memorabilia. In the background, they continually played R&R music! The rest of the décor was up to 50’s par and you can trust me on this; I was there.

The menu offered a seafood sampler so we opted for that. The most I can say for it was that it was off-the-shelf Smart and Final. I had hoped for a tad more than that but it didn’t happen. According to the write-ups and reviews I looked up afterwards, I should have ordered from the breakfast menu. Oh, well. It was our day off and things were moving along nicely and we were enjoying it all.

Having a full tummy will insure that your mind thinks creatively. Mine wanted to find a way to immediately take a nap. When I tried to convinced it that naps were not on the menu, it merely mocked me and advised me that my intelligence was sorely lacking and on par with a box of crackers. It then reminded me of the bench at the nearby duck-laden park down the street on which to lie down. It was duly apprised that I was still looking for options.

We were almost to the point of just calling it a day and flying back home. However, it was only when we ambled (well…more like hobbled) back to the airport (some 5 blocks away) that we did have an option. That was because we noticed that there was a bus stop bench across from the airport.

“Sit down on the bench! This is not a request!!”, my lower back loudly demanded. “If you do not sit down now, I am headed to Florida and moving in with a Cuban Rumba dancer who gives Swedish massages and you and your enlarged gluteus maximus can stay in California!”. OK. So, I caved in to the demands and parked on the bench. I still needed my lower back for now and it was much too early to contend with such difficult negotiations. I just tossed in the chamois and called it a day.

In only about 30 minutes of the hairdo wrecking breezy day and baking in the delightful coastal sunshine which toasted my moon tan to hell, a modern municipal bus, powered by compressed natural gas (CNG), picked us up. We boarded the bus and, for a mere 1.25 each, settled in for a ride to Pismo. My feet were high-fiving. My back simply grunted, “Good call”.

Stay tuned for part two.