Central Coast Wine Tour-Day 3-We Move North

On Tuesday we started our move North to the Wine Country RV Park in Paso Robles. On the way North we are going to stop in Santa Maria to visit our new friends, Steve & Jayne Newman. John & Linda were their mentors at the Monaco Rally in Lancaster, and when they found out we were going to be on the Central Coast they invited us to stop for lunch. Here's a picture of Steve as we drove up. Unfortunately John didn't get a picture of Jayne.

Steve & Jayne own 400 acres that are planted in strawberries. The season in Santa Maria is April to August. They have leased out the land to Dole so that they can concentrate on their other business, Mid Coast Cooling. These are huge refrigerated warehouses that are used to cool down the strawberries when they come from the field, and then hold them for shipping. Steve stated that they can hold the strawberries for a whole week without damaging the berries. Here's a look at the fields surrounding the warehouses.

We watched some of the pickers and they were moving fast, but placing the berries carefully into the boxes. They get paid $1.50 a flat for picking, which can translate into a lot money quickly.

After the tour, Steve led us over to their beautiful house where Jayne had prepared a fantastic Mexican lunch. There was homemade carnitas, soft tacos, crisp tacos, a fantastic homemade dip and chips, and additional sides. We all ate way too much, but we had room for desert. Guess what we had? Strawberry shortcake of course, with cake, bananas, strawberries, ice cream, and whipped cream. Needless to say we waddled back to the motorhomes. Steve & Jayne, thanks so much for an interesting tour and the best lunch we had on our whole trip!

The rest of the trip was anticlimactic. We got to the park, setup, and of course had a Happy Hour. We were all so full from lunch that we just had potluck appetizers for dinner. Tomorrow is a freelance day to allow everyone to do something on their own.