Not sure how to start off this post, I feel like I have been gone from blogging for a long time now except for the shhh, don't tell anyone about the pre-posted throwback Thursday's that I did a long time ago. The last month has been crazy busy with work, paddling and life that I am darn near dead every night and I have zero energy to share what I/we have been up too, but one of these days I will do a recap, so you can all see I am not lying.
On Tuesday the Sheriff, Mr. Pie and I drove up north to Central California/Atascadero/Paso Robles for the Zac Brown Band Concert, you may remember the post about how I bought us concert tickets not knowing it was part of the Mid State Fair, well we went to the concert and hit the fair for four days of fun together. When we left Tuesday it was kind of crazy, I had to drop my car off for some routine maintenance and then we had to drop Milo off at a special doggie daycare for working dogs. Milo has not been boarded since he was a pup and he has zero outside of his immediate family social skills, so we were a little nervous letting anyone handle him, but the people at the kennel were great and let the Sheriff take him back and get him settled before we left. I have to say I was very impressed by this place from the moment we got there and when they asked us if Milo understood any other languages then English, that sealed it for me. All of Milo's commands are done in German and the staff there knows them, so we knew it was going to make things easier for everyone involved. With repeated warnings that Milo is not that friendly and a suggestion that they put a sign on his kennel to warn others we were off. We arrived to our fancy Motel 6 around 7pm and it was really shady, from the moment we walked into the front office we had a really bad feeling about the place, things were not right and there was a weird feeling in the air. We quickly got our room keys and headed back to the truck as we were trying to figure out if we were going to stay or find another room somewhere else. As we sat there a cop pulled into the lot and I told the Sheriff to go ask him were we should eat, cause we were not wanting to go exploring in the dark in a neighborhood we did not know. The Sheriff went and talked to him, asking him what was going on in the hood and if we should stay or go. The cop was super nice and gave us the skinny on the hood and told us he had not responded to a call at our hotel in months and that they did a probation sweep that day to get rid of all the druggies and that we should be fine, we thanked him for his time and went to get dinner. We grabbed dinner at a local hamburger shop (it was the only place open) and headed back to our hotel as we parked the truck this total tweaker/drug addict started walking up to us, it freaked me out and I yelled at the Sheriff "on your left" and the Sheriff looked at the guy, told him "no" as he was reaching for his gun. The guy knew the Sheriff was grabbing his gun and took off. Just for the record our hotel was about two maybe three blocks from the Atascadero State Hospital for the Mentally Insane (the worst criminals are there), yep I know how to pick a hotel. Lets just say that we slept with two loaded guns on our night stand each night cause it was that bad.
Wednesday we did not make any plans cause we were going to the concert that night and we knew it would be a late night so we just wanted to hang out. We grabbed coffee and breakfast and drove around checking out the sights. I only had one request and that was to hit the local community centers. Being the recreation professional that I am, I feel it is my duty to visit them and take photos of me in front of them. Some people like to visit baseball stadiums and some like to visit community centers.
We stopped inside and grabbed a brochure, checked out their teen center and gym and snapped a couple photos.
Yep, total #recreationnerd here and note to self this outfit makes me look really fat, NEVER WEAR THAT AGAIN.
The Sheriff being the good sport that he is and supporting me in my quest of finding as many community centers as we can decided that if we were searching for my favorite places then we were going to go find his. Lol, this is were we ended up after Colony Park…...
This guy sure loves his guns.
After the tactical store I begged the Sheriff to take us to the hospital for a group selfie in front of the sign. There was huge monument sign, so we pulled up in front of it, ran across the lawn and snap a couple pictures before the guards could chase us away.
After our minor trespassing stent, we drove to Paso Robles to check out where the fair was and the parking situation. We decided to get out and walk around the cute little town and stop for a sweet treat along the way.
We headed back to the motel to rest and clean up, Mr. Pie was really tired and acting like a little you know what and I may of said something to him that really pissed him off so he stuck his head under the blankets to hide from me and fell asleep.
Lol, he was totally snoring under there.
We were all pretty excited to be there, so much so I started taking selfies, oh geez.
The three of us and yes, Zac Brown Band is a kid friendly concert with only a couple bad words, like ASS, so no, we are not bad people for taking a kid there.
The Sheriff and I had gone to see ZBB back in October and Mr. Pie was so bummed we did not take him (he loves ZBB). We felt so bad that we did not take him, so we were so glad to find that they were playing here.
We had AWESOME seats, I wish I had video of Mr. Pie standing on his chair (so he could see) singing all of the songs.
Thursday we found another Community Center and hit the fair, it was a ton of fun.
It breaks my recreation heart to see a pool not in use during the summer. This awesome pool was closed and I just could not help but want to go swim in it.
The Sheriff convinced Mr. Pie to do the mutton bustin (sp) contest when we got there. Mr. Pie was too old and too big for the contest part but they let him ride anyway.
The Sheriff was beaming from ear to ear, he was so proud his kiddo was trying this.
Mr. Pie held on for a long time before falling off.
I have a some more great shots and a video but I don't want to share them cause it says his name.
He kind of got trampled, got a huge scrape of his leg and was covered in dirt, but had a great time! We went on rides, played games, ate fair food and left once the evening crowd arrived and started drinking like there was no tomorrow. Kid Rock was playing that night and brought a crowd that we did not want to be a part of, so we left after spending 8 hours there.
I did not share!
While we were at the fair, I got a Instagram message from the NRPA saying I had won a $50 Amazon gift card for a picture I had submitted in their summer photo contest. If you follow me on Instagram you may of noticed that I have been hashtagging a few of my photos #julyOutisIn, I have been doing that to try and win in their contest celebrating Park and Recreation Month. Turns out they liked the fat girl photo in front of the Atascadero Community Center and the fact that I visit Community Centers while on vacation. I was so excited to win, it was seriously awesome, I never win prizes.
Friday we hit the road and headed home. We stopped at the Ostrich Farm along the way, it was pretty cool and Mr. Pie loved every minute of it.
I had to pose for a photo.
The Sheriff wanted to to stop at Pea Soup Anderson's for lunch. We stopped, we ate and we decided never to go back again. We each had the soup and it was nasty. Mr. Pie said his looked like barf, so we jazzed it up a little bit, but it still tasted like barf, oh well.
We all had a great time and made great memories together and we couldn't be more thankful. We are now looking forward to Hawaii, Mr. Pie still does not know we are going and we cannot wait to surprise him at the airport in a month.
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