San Luis Obispo de Tolosa

Today we said goodbye to Monterey and made our way down south to Pismo Beach, my next destination of the remaining vacation week.

But first, we picked up Jina from San Luis Obispo (SLO) train station. She was coming with us to Pismo Beach, no point in bringing a 3rd car too!!!

Then we hit the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, yes, another mission to check off my list. This was the 5th mission found by Father Serra in 1772. We came in from the back, and didn’t see the front entrance until after most of the tour. It seemed to me this one was smaller than the one in Carmel. But it is right next to a small stream in downtown, along with all the shops, very easily accessible by locals and tourists visiting the area.

Here are pictures of the mission.



Afterward, we grabbed a bite at the Big Sky Café, interesting menu. I had the Mediterranean Salad Medley, not really sure if I would call it great. It was ok. Probably poor choice on my side. How can a café name like this be having bad food? I was thinking of this cookbook “Big Sky Cooking” I wanted it for a long time, definitely setting up high expectation for myself….oh well.

We browsed through a few more shops and decided to go check into the hotel in Pismo Beach first, then headed back this way for the Thursday night farmers’ market, supposed to be really fun. Yes, I was setting expectation again! Not my fault, this LA Times article had my hopes high up.

Here are a few pictures of curios of the shops in San Luis Obispo downtown area and some from the Farmers' Market.



We came back in the evening for the SLO Farmers' Market. Parking was challenging but we found one near the mission. Ok, there were a few produce and fruit stalls, but the rest were food vendors, selling mostly BBQs. Yes, once again, high expectation, the experience was only mediocre. Jina and I had BBQ meat, we picked the longest line to stand in, figured the local must know something we didn’t. At least the food was good and the price was very reasonable for the amount of food we got. Yes, we stuffed our face. Not good.

And here are a few shots of the Worldmark Pismo Beach. I set low expectation since this was my first time here because everyone kept saying the unit is small. True it was small, but for the three of us, there were plenty of room. And it was like a few steps to the beach, really great location. I had the bedroom. Jina and Barb slept on the Murphy bed in the living room. I really like the Murphy bed idea. Not that I needed one in our current home anymore, but it would have been great for any small footage home. And we did have a full kitchen, not that we were cooking anything at all, not even breakfast!