Monday, November 24

El Churro, San Luis Obispo Montessori, Guatalupe, Lompoc

El Churro Regional Park provided us with so many cultural opportunities; Cuesta "College", a Mens Colony, Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. It was hard to leave the beauty but we had visits to make. We split into two groups, well three groups if you count the small army of sick people accumulating in the SAG (Sicksie Bus; Ashley, Miah, & Sean).

One group head to Grover Beach to check out the Voler (pronounced to our surprise with a French accent vo-lay, not vo-laire like we've been saying for the last two years) factory. The folks at Voler have donated extra jerseys and shorts to us for the last two years. This has helped make an expensive sport (jerseys alone can run $40-$60) affordable for we environmental educators. We got to see the entire screen printing process and even see some pretty cute Twin Six brand jerseys being printed and sewn together in the plant. We had some fun with some of the ladies in the plant, thanks to them and Jeff for showing us the place, and assisting us so much with this trip. Most of us however headed to San Luis Obispo Montessori and got to garden with the 4th, 5th, & 6th graders for a couple of hours! So much fun to learn with and from those students in the garden and compost.

We met up at Pismo State Beach for lunch, but 50 miles and the Harris Grade waited for us before Lompoc. This was a huge day, not big hills, but lots of miles before sundown. Frankly we flew, we made amazing time down PCH1. When we met up at Guatalupe Jacob figured that we were making 15 miles an hour. The Harris grade is 8 miles of uphill, but once you get there you're just about homefree. Little regrouping at the base, and lots of encouragement on the way helped, but really it was nothing compared to Santa Cruz mountains!

Superfun downhill, rolled through town, and we got into the RV park before night. We have not stayed in Lompoc for two years, and we were really looking forward to the bowling alley only to find out that it had recently been torn down. The locals at the restruant we stopped at were equally dissapointed. Next day we get to Santa Barbara for a couple days, yeehaw!!