Day 27: Oceano- San Luis Obispo. 15.5 miles

Day 27: Oceano- San Luis Obispo. 15.5 miles.
Janice joined us and hung in there for the whole leg from Pismo to SLO for 12.5 miles. Thank you Janice for joining us, then treating us to dinner and a hotel room!

Yesterday we  took a shortcut across some fields. As we did, The little voice in my head said "there are no shortcuts." Our first Camino taught me this. I said it aloud to Gerald. He nodded. We walked on and arrived in Oceani around 1pm.

The first campground was full and catered to RVs. The second campground was full and no longer had hike/bike section. Due to problems with transients using drugs and alcohol and obviously behaving in ways that were a problem and made their drug use obvious, the state campgrounds in the Pismo area discontinued the hike and bike group section. We were directed a third campground that may or may not have a space and found a fourth campground using Google that was about a mile away.
We trodded around in circles, lost and trying to figure out where these other campgrounds were. A park ranger gave us a map and told us we could use a service road. As soon as we turned onto the service road, a state parks police/ranger zoomed up to us in what looked like an armored dune buggy. The officer was in full gear. He looked like he was ready for battle. I realized with the city's recent problem with transients, the officer may think we were problem vagrants. "Can I help you?" The officer said a bit gruffly.
We explained our situation. The officer changed his tone and became very helpful. He directed us to the same third campground that we were headed to. He asked a few questions about what we were doing and where we were headed to next. He let us continue walking on the service road and drove on. The stopped and pulled over almost as soon as he had left us. The officer got out of his armored dune buggy, still with pepper spray and whatever else all that stuff was he has strapped to his chest. "If you are going to walk to Atascadero, you'll have to cross Cuesta Grade. You don't want to go on the highway. That's too, dangerous. What you can do is take Stage Coach Road. There's a lot of trees and shade. It's also the real old stage coach road and much safer." We thanked him. He waved as he was already headed back into his supped-up police dune buggy and Vroom vroom he was gone.

I did not tell him that was the way Butch had already figured out for the guidebook. Ok so back to finding a place to sleep tonight.
The Coastal RV Park, that did not look like a campground, had a small pinned in corner that only a few tents could fit into for their group camp hike/bike. We told the county park employee what we were doing; walking the Californua Missions. I am not sure if she did not hear, did not understand, did not care or simply did not believe us. She smiled that 'that's nice honey' kind of smile and said "Thirteen dollars please."  I thanked her for still supporting a hike/bike section. "It's for one night only."  Gerald said "That's fine. That is all we need."  Oh well. At least we have a place to be.