2008 revisited

Petra and I started our year in 2008 in Cayucos, California and ended itin Paso Robles. As the year ended we were about to walk east across America and Europe to Jerusalem. Here are some highlights of the year.

Cayucos

We started the year looking for an apartment in Cayucos. It was an unfruitful search there and anywhere along the coast. Everything was so close together. And the story was that it will be cold, damp, and fog. Everything was so close together. And the story was that it would be cold, damp, and foggy in the summer. We decided to abandon Cayucos in favor of Paso Robles, a semi-desert area.

We really were pulled in by the Italian seaside look of Cayucos when we arrived.

It is not always warn on the Cayucos beach. We're sitting on the beach in late April. It is still cool.

You can see more Cayucos pictures in the 2007 page.

Paso Robles

On February 4th we moved into 292 Cheyenne in Paso Robles. We lived there sharing the space with birds and the little guy in the second picture. We moved out 15 January 2009 when we began our walk across America.

Our back yare soon after we move in.

We shared our back yard with our friendly gopher most of the spring and summer. Actually he produced a lot of fill for a low spot along the house.

Desert environment

Paso Robles is in a semi-desert area. During the hot season temperatures often went well above 100, though the humidity was very low. We seldom had the air conditioning on. The amazing thing was that even on those 100+ days it was a comfortable 70 by eight in the evening and it often got down into the 50s before the night was over.

It didn’t rain from March till October. But even in that, everyone had their watered lawn.

Our contract mandated us to water this our lawn. The back yard is above.

Slide shows

We put on several slide shows during the first half of year on the Camino de Santiago and our walk from Germany to Rome. The turn-out was low and we stopped doing them. The pictures at the left are from the German to Rome slide show.

Walking classes

Petra gave walking classes to locals though few signed up. Here she is walking along our almost daily five-mile-or-so route around Paso.

Wine country

We lived in wine country here in Paso Robles. Vineyards abounded. This one had a grove of trees that looked like a heart. New plants protected from the cold stood in neat rows over the hills.

Camino real

When we came to California we had hoped to be able to walk the route of the Camino Real, the route between the Spanish missions that were strung out from San Diego to north of San Francisco. It was very difficult because busy highways stand over the horse trail of the early days. In the early 2010s some people were working on making the walk viable though they had a long way to go yet. We managed to walk from San Miguel to San Ynez, some 134 miles. We had to walk the railroad south of Paso and near San Luis Obispo where the busy Hwy 101 is over the the route of the Camino Royal.

We took each other's picture in front of San Miguel's gate and then I sewed them together into this composite.

Highway 101 stands over the Camino Real making it necessary to walk the nearby railway instead.

We walked this railway south of Paso in May.

And then I walked it again in August.

American Pilgrims gathering

In March we attended the American Pilgrims on the Camino national gathering in Santa Barbara. It was good to be among fellow pilgrims again and to share stories and common experiences. We showed our Germany to Rome slide show there before around a hundred people.

We all walked one afternoon along the beach of Santa Barbara.

The mission bell tower.

Marty visits

My brother Marty visited us in his RV from Illinois in late April. He kept mumbling about the cost of gas off and on as he was here.

Marty meets a gull on the dock in Cayucos.

Marty and Petra on the same dock.

The spring yellow in the hills of Cayucos that day.

And some of the other flowers.

What do you see Marty?

A beached starfish.

This is under construction from here down yet…even though it six years late.

Sierras

During July we drove to Mono Hot Springs in the high Sierras south of Yosemite National Park.

EBay

2008 brought me several sales on eBay.

Scout walking east

In September while Petra was in Germany to get her mother, I drove as far east as Seligman, Arizona, to scout out our path for walking east the next year.

Petra's mom visits

Petra’s mother visited us in Paso Robles for three weeks. It was her first time out of Europe and her first time in an airplane. She was 78. We drove with her across the interior valley to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks and then back to San Francisco and home. She loved it, especially visiting San Francisco.

Germany to Rome book

During the summer and fall we wrote Germany to Rome in 64 days: Our Pilgrimage, the story of our walk from Kisslegg to Rome in 2006-2007. You can read about at http://www.walkingwithawareness.com/gtrpilgrimage.htm.