Back in the Hood

MEMORY MAKING: OLD FRIENDS AND FAVORITE PLACES ON THE CENTRAL COAST

Leading with the Human Connections

On the way to town we’d connected with one friend and had dinner with others as soon as we arrived. Now we’d be stopping by for “coffee” with even more people we’d enjoyed when we lived there. I put quotes around coffee, because I don’t drink it, but it’s easier to make coffee appointments and explain my odd negation of the beverage for later. If we were going to be in the area for an extended period, I would have reached out to quite a few more favorite faces, but our time was limited.

First up was Sally, a sister in the Lord. We met at South Bay Women’s Network, which was a group I loved all the time I was there. Sally and I have stayed in touch, mostly thanks to the magic of Facebook and her very sweet spirit. Since we’d last seen each other in person, she’d gotten married and moved from Los Osos to Avila Beach. It was great to catch up, meet her guy and see her very lovely home.

Too soon, because we could have continued the visit for hours, it was time to head to Arroyo Grande to visit Melissa, a sister in real estate. I did real estate while I was there and besides being one of the nicest people in the world, Melissa was also one of the very best real estate agents I ever met. I tried to emulate her in everything thing I did and gave her my client list when I left. She was still married to the same guy, but had given up a big rambling house on a large lot to downsize in the city. We shared all the real estate gossip and I caught up on her family. Then she showed us around her remarkable estate. In the front it looks like just another lovely home in the Five Cities, but the backyard seems more like a resort than a residential space and then there were all the garages – one with her beloved RV. Her daughters carried on her real estate business for her and Melissa is busy being a grandmother and RV traveler.

We Built That

Having fulfilled our coffee appointments, we made our way to our old neighborhood, not to see someone, but some place. Our home at 37 La Gaviota had been Bill’s labor of love and he wanted to spend some time there. Even though he’d done my real estate photography on the Central Coast, he didn’t learn to fly a drone until we opened Spot On Images in Texas. Bill had brought his drone along so he could get some shots of the old home place. At the time, it was the pinnacle of his home building experiences. Now we live in what he considers his masterpiece.

I’ll leave you with the pages I made in Artisan from his photo shoot of our old home.