Change of Plans, Part Two

After Yosemite and the creep-ville that was Barrett Cove, we looked forward to another National Park visit. Our plan was to visit the giant sequoia trees in Sequoia National Park and stay just outside of the park’s entrance for the week. But once again the wildfires interfered with our plans. A huge fire was taking over the area and the air quality forecast was not promising. The news from Sequoia was not good at all – many of the largest trees in the world were at risk of burning. Park rangers and fire fighters were wrapping these giant legends in fire resistant material in an attempt to save them.

With the fires encroaching on our campground and the smoke and air quality already bad and getting worse by the day, we felt like we needed to find a place well outside of the fire/smoke zone. So even though we weren’t staying in California much longer, we decided to head back toward the coast for the week.

In a quick pivot, we found an opening at a place in one of California’s well known wine regions – Paso Robles. I had actually never heard of Paso Robles, but supposedly some of the most interesting and unique California wines come from this area. I’m sure I’ve drank the wines; I just never knew where they came from!

After a quick search through RV trip wizard (our trip-planning platform) and Campendium (another helpful campsite review website), the website for the RV “resort” Cava Robles sucked me right in. It was one of the most expensive places we have stayed in, if not the most expensive, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? We needed to quickly find a place to stay and aimed for somewhere better than the last place that also was away from the danger zone. Thankfully, we felt justified in how much we dished out when we found ourselves in our most resort-like RV park yet.

The sites at Cava Robles were well-manicured and spacious (if you’re looking at the pictures, remember, it’s all relative), with nice landscaping and actual green grass lining the back of our site. Green! In drought-stricken California! We were positioned on the end of a row and for most of the week there was no one near us.

Cava Robles had two pools, one of which was seriously one of the nicest hotel/resort pools I have seen in a WHILE. It also had hot tubs, a great playground, and the best part for me – a nice, empty workout room.

The weather in Central California was, in our experience, consistently sunny and beautiful. But it was still dry. The girls were surprised when they couldn’t help but shiver after getting out of the pool despite it being in the 80s. Rough October living, am I right?

While in Paso Robles we had beautiful sunsets over the hills and wineries surrounding the resort. We were happy to finally roast marshmallows and sit by a fire after what felt like months of nothing but fire bans. We even broke out the ukulele for a good ol’ fashioned campfire sing-along. Everyone took turns trying to play the Israel Kamakawiwo’ole version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Some were better than others.

Paso Robles had a cute little downtown square that the girls and I visited for lunch one day. We sat outside a deli watching the local lunch crowd hustling about and groups of tourists wander from campervans with dogs in tow. We played at the park in the square, which met the girls’ high standards because it had a merry-go-round of sorts built into the ground – super cool and fast. We spent the rest of the afternoon leisurely soaking up the sun and reading our (surprisingly crowd-pleasing) world history book.

We were so wooed by the town square that we took Alex with us one night for dinner. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention the BEST ice cream we have had so far on our trip. Well, ok, ONE OF the best ice creams. It’s hard to compare because this was sheep’s milk ice cream. Yes, sheep’s milk! Who would have thought? It was so tasty I bought a sweatshirt. In fairness, it was super cute. If you ever find yourself in Paso Robles, do yourself a favor and stop by Negranti Creamery and get a few scoops. You won’t regret it.

The only other family outing we had in the area was to visit a winery for a tasting. We felt obligated to go to at least ONE winery while we were there. In a rush to make it happen between Alex’s work schedule, open tasting reservations, and places that allowed kids, we ended up somewhere that didn’t even grow their own grapes! The Fableist, as it was called, used grapes from other local (and some non-local) wineries to create their own varietals. It was still pretty fabulous, and each wine was inspired by one of Aesop’s fables, which made for more of an experience, even if the girls were leaping like animals in the grass beside us the whole time.

Overall, the week was very low-key and low-stress, a nice break from the weirdness of Barrett Cove and the intensity of avoiding wildfires.

Aside 1: Upon further google searching, it turns out Negranti has several Southern California locations, so just keep an eye out.

Aside 2: The best cow’s milk ice cream we have had on the trip was from Horatio’s in Custer, South Dakota. Holy smokes, their homemade ice cream sandwiches were next level.