South as far as Nipomo

Today we grabbed coffee at Kelly’s and headed south on Highway 1, past San Luis Obispo. Our first stop was in the Shell Beach area near Pismo. I found I Spy! quickly at 8:40 AM. Even though there were several folks around looking at the views, the cache hiding spot was blocked from their view. The next stop was at Shell Beach, a virtual where you have to count the number of steps down to the beach. Finished this at 9:09 AM. We looked for quite a while for Dinosaur Rock (I remember the dinosaur from my younger days), but it turns out the cache was archived just after I downloaded my pocket query.

Our next stop was in Arroyo Grande. As we took the off-ramp, Karen noticed a Trader Joe’s and wanted to shop, so I dropped her and went on to find a couple of nearby caches. Dewey’s Dusty Trail was pretty easy. Found it at 10:22 AM. Next I went for By Grace. Took me a while to find the right road, but then it was easy to find at 10:34 AM.

Picked up Karen and drove over to Stuff Mart which was in the same general shopping center. We found this one at 11:06 AM and then drove to downtown old Arroyo Grande. Found Verde Grande at 11:27 AM. It’s in an overhead girder in a bridge built in 1908. Then while Karen shopped in the stores, I looked for some other downtown caches. Found How Now Hooscow! at noon. Karen took a picture of me with a fiberglass statue of Elvis so I could claim Frozen In Time locationless. Got this one at 12:05 PM. Then I got Fire Fire Fire… Thanks AGFD at 12:23 PM. This was a very public place. This was a clever attempt at camo but it didn’t come off too well because dirt kept falling into the cache holder. Also, one object (scissors) was too large and I couldn’t get the cache to fit back in the container without taking it.

Since we were getting hungry, and a guy we talked to at Shell Beach recommended Jocko’s in Nipomo, we went to eat there. Unfortunately, the lunch steaks aren’t prepared over the barbecue–but it was good, although the restaurant is packed with tables and kind of plain. After lunch, we just walked over to grab Jocko’s Juxtaposition at 1:41 PM. I was looking for a magnetic cache and couldn’t find it. Then Karen said what’s this paper? Turns out the key holder must have been muggled, but the log was left. I signed the log and returned it where I found it.

It was just a short drive to Downtown Nipomo History Lesson, which I found at 1:55 PM. It was stuck in a guard rail on main street. Then we drove east out of town and a little ways on a dirt road to get Nipomo Foothills Lookout Point at 2:58 PM. And then we got Gateway to the Nipomo Cache Trail at 3:15 PM. I had to crawl around looking for this one for a while.

We returned to Arroyo Grande for an ice cream sundae at Doc Bernstein’s, and then grabbed A Great Big Arroyo Grande Welcome at 4:23 PM. Next we got Never on Sunday at 4:30 PM, just a short distance away. Talk about easy to find—can’t miss it. Drove to the west side of town and walked down a par course trail to find “J”iggle-free zone at 4:42 PM.

Well, that was a wrap for Nipomo and Arroyo Grande, so we started back to Cayucos, but detoured into Avila Beach and found Pier Pressure (a virtual) at 5:30 PM. Hunted for Another Flippin’ Cache, but I’m not sure if coords were spot on, and there were too many rocks to search under.

The last one for the day was The O.K. Corral just outside of Morro Bay on Highway 1. Found it at 6:24 PM.