Found out this am when Jerry was putting a new part for the air horn in the engine compartment of the Dodge that a critter or two apparently got in there and chewed a 1-1/2’ hole in the hood insulation. So he bought a new one and I helped him install it. Pretty easy deal.
After 5 pm we went to downtown SLO (San Luis Obispo) as it is known, and attended the street fair. It is a farmer’s market but much more. The downtown area is about 5 blocks long and appears to have many restaurants, wine places, bar and grills and lots of stores like the Apple store, clothing shops, antiques, etc, etc. Many of the restaurants had their doors/windows/fronts open to the beautiful evening air and/or tables on the outside. Lots of food vendors, many barbeques, frozen yogurt, pizza, Chinese, Asian, etc. Many fruit and veggie vendors, with the famous strawberries and cherries, along with lots of lettuces, tomatoes, all kinds of veggies…all, of course, grown in the valley here. We didn’t eat at this barbeque place as there was a block-long line. McClintock’s, quite a well-known restaurant in town with two locations plus this portable. They were serving Santa Maria style beef and chicken dinners. Smelled yummy. Instead, we chose Marston’s who had their grill going outside their bar and grill. I chose barbeque sandwich (huge) on garlic toast which was thin slices of the tri-tip barbequed Santa Maria with the traditional salsa on the side. WOW. Jerry had a yummy bowl of their homemade chili. We took our food and bought a beer in their bar but didn’t feel like we were inside, as we were just one table in from the sidewalk and faced the street so we could people watch while eating.
After eating, we sauntered the five blocks to and fro.
T
his was one of the pizza makers. They had a round ceramic mozaic cover for their oven and you can see the flames in the fire area. Sure did smell delicious! Very unusual!
There were four different venues for street entertainment. One, whose show we missed were two men on stilts. Don’t know what else they did. We listened for a bit to a regular “old folks music” band. Not too impressive. Another was Crustacia Jazz Band with 4 playing instruments including tuba, and two playing the washboard out front. Didn’t capture the little old lady in purple with her washboard but she was a character! She had led lights blinking in her washboard and danced around to the music while playing. Another band member was a young man – 17? – who also played the washboard. Fun to watch them as well as a couple of toddlers who were certainly enjoying the music and dancing! Cute. Cute.
Another music venue was this Bucket Buster drum line and the belly dancers. The drums were from a drum school here in SLO and they had been playing drums 1 yr and up. They used 5 gallon paint buckets to sit on and to drum on. Two others in the back of the line had garbage can lids for cymbals. Had lots of fun. The belly dancing ladies had interesting costumes and they sure could “move it.” Great people watching. The best part was when the drum teacher/leader invited the little kids to come up to play the drums. More cute, cute! They didn’t want to leave. Very smart PR – they might be future drum students!
The downtown area was charming with varied storefronts and architecture. We noticed several pocket alleys with shops
All in all a very interesting evening. We like this town as much as we liked Santa Maria.
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