Family Travel

Don't know if you noticed it or not, but my production dropped off the last couple of weeks. Not only was I trying to do my taxes, but also something came up regarding my dad's place (which unfortunately I'm the executrix for). That finally came together today, so other than some cleanup work the next couple of days, I should be able to get back to the trip more fully now.

Today I had to spend part of the day sitting in a Staples parking lot in San Luis Obispo to wrap up some of this business, so we didn't have as much time to sightsee as we might have liked. So we did what we could with the time available.

Yesterday we noticed the Monarch Butterflies at Pismo State Beach tended to prefer the sunshine. So this morning when the sun was shining more directly on the campground, I was cautiously optimistic that we would see the butterflies up close more, not just in the tops of the trees. We weren't disappointed. These were some shots I got just walking over the low dune to the beach:

(No dear cousin, these are not giant butterflies! Keep in mind, I have a 12x optical zoom on the camera, which with some cropping during the edit process, can work like a 20x or more digital zoom. Ho, Ho)

The interpretive trailer was open this morning, so we stopped by to see what we could learn. It turns out they sell Monarch Butterfly stuff, but there are also volunteer nature guides available to answer questions and provide information. It turns out that the winter over season is really just about over, most of the butterflies have already left to return home - could have fooled me! This season, the peak Monarch Butterfly population was about 20,000. They estimate there are only about 1,700 left. The population fluctuates from year to year - the largest being about 230,000!

Arroyo Grande and Pismo State Beach are also famous for sand dunes. People are allowed to bring or rent dune buggy's and drive them over the dunes. But we needed to go take care of that business at Staples (the portable printer I brought with me died), and we'd taken pictures of dunes before - so I skipped that section of the beach, but it sounded like fun

We did take a little time however to walk over to the north beach where we camped before leaving. Mom really liked the funny shaped tree's on the low dune between the campground and the beach.

I walked out in the waves a bit to check them out - they were quite cold! The views were great however.

We also caught this little fellow just as we were leaving the campground - a common animal perhaps, but still cute.

So we reluctantly did finally leave the campground and head to Staples at San Luis Obispo to take care of that business, then got back on the road North to continue our trip. Shortly after passing through San Luis Obispo, we turned off of Hwy 101 again onto Hwy 1, the coast highway. We drove through Morro Bay, which looked quite interesting, but I kept going as it was already fairly late. The coast starts to get more and more rocky up here, but we still passed several state beaches along the way.

As we approached San Simeon, there were some Vista turnouts (no overnight camping) that had splendid overlooks of the rocky coast. I finally gave in and stopped at a couple to enjoy the coast for a few minutes. It really is quite interesting to watch the surf break over the craggy rocks.

We did finally make it to the Hearst Castle Visitor's Center only to find that the tours for today were all sold out. We booked tickets for a tour tomorrow morning (one especially suitable for people with walking difficulties) and headed back to San Simeon State Beach where we'd seen camping signs. Although we didn't get to the Castle today, we had a nifty view of it from Hwy 1 (at 12x zoom again).

Later, as we were driving around the campground we saw this bird. I know the picture is very poor quality, but figured this is a unique enough bird (for us at least), that I'd try posting it. If we see one again, I can try to get a better shot. But this is a Nuttall's Woodpecker, a little smaller than I'd expect for a woodpecker. These are 'common' according to my references, but I don't recall seeing one before.

We found a campsite on a bluff, a long way from the beach but with a peek-a-boo view of the ocean in the distance. Mom and I played a few games of Rummy Cubes and ate. The sun started to go down but we had only a partial view from the RV, so I hiked down a bit to a rocky bluff to get this shot - which seems like such a nice way to wind up the day?

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 67, Cumulative - 17,387
Camped at San Simeon State Beach, Woodburn Campground (Primative)

Provisions Procured - Monarch Butterfly stuff at the Trailer at Pismo State Beach

The forecasters were right, the weather today was beautiful.

We got a late start, partly because we'd stayed at state parks for a few nights - so I really needed to do some housekeeping on the RV, Empty Tanks, Fill Tanks, get tires checked, vacuum, etc. (Of course, the fact that Mom & I had to visit the hot tub this morning before we left the RV Campground had nothing to do with our late start).

Anyway, we headed back towards Solvang because on the far side of the town is an old Spanish Mission. This one is Mission Santa Ines (Ines is the Spanish word for Agnes).

It was founded in 1804 and is the last Mission they set up in Southern California. It was originally very large, about 350 feet long on each side in the shape of a square (or almost square rectangle). The church is still used for services, in fact we had to alter our tour somewhat to accomidate a mass they were starting shortly.

The yard inside the Mission was originally used for many things, including some gardens, making adobe bricks and roof tiles, cutting lumber and whatever chores were needed. Today, this is maintained as an ornamental garden. It was very pleasant however and had both orange and lemon trees (with ripe fruit).

After we visited the Mission, we stopped by the Ostrich farm. Mom had hoped to buy an ostrich egg, but the farm was closed. However, the ostriches were still quite visible from the road, so Mom was happy to settle for a picture.

Even though we'd only done a couple of things, it was already lunch (probably because of the hot tub...) so before we left Buellton, we stopped for lunch at Anderson's Pea Soup. The soup was delicious of course, but somehow I forgot to take any pictures except for this one of Mom. An exterior shot would have been nice, or even one of my soup - but it just didn't occur to me.

Anyway, with our bellies filled up - and the gas tank also fueled up, we got back on Hwy 101 and continued North. Because of the recent rains, the famous golden hills of California were a beautiful green, with live oaks and rolling hills. Love the scenery of a CA Springtime (although technically it's still winter).

We also saw several hawks - I was able to restrain myself for awhile, but how can I not upload a shot of two together?

We also passed quite a few very lovely horse pastures, more cattle ranches, and more strawberry fields. We are starting to see more vineyards in this area - in fact Solvang seems to have as many wine tasting shops as motels (and they have a lot of those). I skipped the wine tasting in Solvang, for the most part we select activities both Mom and I enjoy - and she is not a wine drinker. However, I enjoy an occasional glass and decided to stop at the Leaitta Winery we passed and try some good old California wine tasting. I don't know if it was me or the weather, but for the most part I didn't care as much for their wines as for the Washington wines (maybe I'm just more familiar with them?), but I did find an orange desert wine I liked. I also loved the views.

When we got near Arroyo Grande, I decided to turn off again for the brown sign - Pismo State Beach. OK, we've seen several beaches already that had camping, why not try for one more? The trouble began when we found out there are three different camping areas. The one in the middle is a little like WA - you can actually drive out onto the beach - but you have to be a little careful not to drive on soft sand and not to park too close to the water since there is no marker where the high tide ends! But the camping would have only cost us $8/night - so I was all in favor of this one. (Also, we'd be right on the water, if we didn't get too close to it.)

Mom didn't like the idea of washing away with the tide and argued strongly for one of the other more developed campgrounds. I agreed to at least check one of them out and find out how much it cost. The north campground was $18/night, so Mom agreed to go back to the first one. However by then I'd found out that Pismo State Beach is the largest Monarch Grove on the CA Coast - where Monarch Butterflies overwinter - and the grove is in the north campground! Also, we found a site just a short dune away from the beach (maybe 100 yards from the water?). So again, I overruled her and we stayed at the north campground.

But before setting up the RV, we parked near the Monarch Grove and I did my best to take pictures. It was late in the afternoon and the butterflies, while abundant, were mostly in the tops of some very tall Eucalyptus trees - where it was still sunny & warm. Butterflies are even harder to capture with a zoom lense then birds! Although I had to delete a bunch of worthless shots, I got a couple to at least show what they look like. (Note, eucaluptus trees do not have orange flowers)

Later, Mom also saw one land in the sand near us while we were enjoying the evening at the beach.

Mom was a little easier to 'capture' on the beach, at least she doesn't fly away before I can aim the camera!

There weren't enough clouds for a really spectacular sunset, but the craggy tree's made an interesting contrast with the evening sky, so I took pictures anyway.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 62, Cumulative - $17,320
Camped at Pismo State Beach, North Campground ($18)

Provisions Secured: Gas $23.93 for 7.364 gallons at 127,157 miles
...Propane $11.92 for 3.2 gallons at Flying Flags RV Campground
...Lunch $20.xx at Anderson's Pea Soup + gift shop...
...Albertsons, misc groceries and cash
...Two bottles of Orange Desert Wine from Laeitta Winery

This morning, I found out that the name of the state beach we camped at was Thornhill Broome Beach, which isn't even shown on our maps and atlas. It also seemed that the waves weren't quite as big as last night. They weren't. It turns out that yesterday's storm had caused unusually high waves all along this section of the California Coast. The ones where we were had washed up water and debries all the way to the road in some sections (not by our RV, but at other sites).

It's probably good we didn't know how high the water got as we probably would have left for higher ground. However, we got through the night just fine and woke up to some more beautiful beach scenery. This is a shot of the bluff just to our north. The cut between the rocks is for Hwy 1. When we drove through it, quite a few people had parked, hoping to catch a glimpse of the whales that migrate through here this time of year. We had also watched for them some, but haven't been fortunate enough to spot any yet.

It was still fairly cool, but I figured it was about time at least one of us got our feet into the Pacific Ocean, afterall, we've been driving along it since Saturday. Mom also decided it was about time a picture of me got into the blog - a rare occurance since she left her camera behind in Miami (& I'm too lazy to mess with tripods unless absolutely necessary).

Again, I wanted to try to make some progress today - but we also both wanted to start doing a little more sightseeing. So today, we tried to find a little balance between the two. We pulled off in Oxnard when we saw workers out harvesting strawberries in February. I guess that's the normal season for down here - but seems awfully early to me (I get mine up in WA in July I think).

We also passed orchards with ripe lemons all over the trees and some sort of crops under some sort of structure that looked like beans or raspberries. We have a bit of a beef with Oxnard however, I pulled off because they had signs for Tourist Information, but after driving around in circles a little, I finally went in one of the businesses where the tourist info was supposed to be only to find it had been moved - but they hadn't moved the signs! Oh well, guess they should just rename the signs - "Tourist Misinformation" for now.

But we got to Hwy 101 eventually and continued North on it. It has cute little signs to remind you that this was once the famed 'El Camino Real' - the route the Spanish explorers and missionaries took in the 1700's and 1800's when California was a Spanish territory. (Mom also likes the pretty, yellow mustard flowers behind the sign.)

A few miles up the road I pulled off when I saw a homemade sign advertising Avocodo's at 4 for a Dollar! But, as we pulled off, we also saw this big sign:

It turns out we had stumbled into La Conchita. This little town, population 338 in 2000, was in the national news in 2005 when a massive mudslide destroyed 13 homes and killed 10 people. The slide occurred in part of the area of another big (but less deadly) mudslide in 1995. Geologists have since declared the entire area to be unstable and, while the town claims there had never been a mudslide prior to 1995 (in the history of the town that is), the geologists say there have been slides here for thousands of year, some much bigger than the two recent ones. Looking at the hillside, I'd have to agree that it doesn't look like a very safe place to live.

But the folks still there don't want to move and probably couldn't sell their homes anyway, so it's still a town. The highway sign wasn't lying - a local vendor had set up a fruit stand out of his van and had lots of local fruit. Most were very reasonable prices, the avocodo's were big and cheap - only the strawberries were too steep for my budget - so we stocked up and got back on the highway (and away from that nasty hillside).

Soon after we arrived at Santa Barbara, which has a special place in Mom's heart. Her brother and mother both lived there at different times and she has fond memories of visiting them and walking on Stern's Wharf out by the beach and marina. Even though we'd both been to Santa Barbara before, I figured it was something we ought to do again, and a typical CA Coast stop for a trip such as this. The beach was quite beautiful, and even though it was still cool, the surfers didn't seem to mind.

Mom seemed to really be enjoying the sunshine, meeting people and talking about our trip. I walked a bit further to take some pictures and she struck up quite a little conversation with these girls from the local college.

This was right by the famous dolphin statue at the entrance to Sterns Wharf, sort of the middle of the beach and downtown area.

We walked out most of the way on Sterns Wharf. Mom bought a Santa Barbara sweatshirt and postcards. I got a refridgerator magnet and squashed a penny. We also ate lunch at one of the cafe's on the Wharf - good food, but I ate too much. One of the shopowners we talked to said the wharf had been closed yesterday due to the rough surf - up to 25' waves!

From the wharf, I had a closer view of the Marina to the north. I was really surprised when a surfer appeared on one the the waves alongside the marina - it looked too close to the rock jetty to me, but he seemed to know what he was doing I guess. Other than that, it looked a lot like the marina's back home.

Here are a couple more shots of the beach and town, lovely place to visit but I couldn't afford to live there!

So we headed back to the RV and made our way back to El Camino Real to head north again. We tried a couple more times to stop at some beaches, but being unwilling to fork over $9 just to even stop for a few minutes, we mostly just kept driving. Mom got one shot of a railroad bridge we had to drive under to get to the gate and find out we couldn't afford the beach...

I also pulled over to take a couple of pictures of the scenery. With all the rain they've had this winter, the state is very green and beautiful. This part of Hwy 101 is one of the most scenic, you drive through ranches and still along the coast, my favorite part so far. At Gaviota, the Highway turns inland and through some very rocky terrain - including a tunnel we had to navigate.

We drove away from the cost for a short distance and finally made it to Solvang. This is a small town that was founded by Danish educators in 1911 to escape the midwest winters. It was a fairly normal town until the 1950's or '60's when a developer started building some things to look more 'Danish'. The idea caught on and now this is quite the little Danish Tourist Mecca (town). It's nicely done and quite pleasant to walk through, although by this time Mom was quite exhausted. We bought some pastries and a few small things, then decided to call it a day.

BTW - Ronald Reagan's ranch, the 'Western White House', is only about six miles from Solvang.

Anyway, we drove back about four miles to Hwy 101 where I had seen an RV park. The rates weren't too unreasonable and we've settled in for the night. I went ahead and did the laundry (Mom is just too tired) so we could get an early start tomorrow. We may go back up towards Solvang, there is a Mission nearby we might check out as well as an Ostrich farm Mom though looked interesting.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 103, Cumulative - 17,258
Camped at Flying Flags RV Resort and Campground, Bueliton, CA

Provisions Obtained - Gas $39.65 for 12.167 gallons at 127,057
Lunch at Char West Fish & Chips, Sterns Wharf, Santa Barbara
Danish Pastries at Solvang

Wildlife Observed:
Hawk in Oxnard (I did take a picture, didn't upload tho)
Brown Pelicans, seagulls, pigeons, coots and other birds, Beach at Santa Barbara

Weather forecasters must be getting better. I remember the weather forecast almost as a joke when I was a kid - but most of this trip the forecasts have been dead on. Last week, they said it would rain Friday, be decent Saturday and rain Sunday. Bingo - rained Friday, nice yesterday, then started raining again last night. This morning Mom got up all fired up to go check out the beach. She quickly found out it wasn't quite as much fun when it was wet.

No bother, I wanted to get at least past the Los Angeles area by tonight - not that there aren't nice things to see and do down here, but this trip is more about enjoying the rural parts of America, big cities tend to drag us down a bit. So with the rain, we didn't have much incentive to stop. We both wanted to see as much of the coastal highway's as we could however, so we started up Hwy 101. It doesn't go through all the way from San Diego to Los Angeles however, we had to jump on I-5 again to get through Camp Pendleton. It kind of made me appreciate military bases however, at least we drove through rural area's along the coast - not condo's and such. We did see one tank driving along the dirt roads by the freeway however - in the rain.

When we got to Dana Point, we got off I-5 again and took Hwy 1 the rest of the day (except for a detour around LAX). However, until we got past LA and it's suburbs, Hwy 1 was mostly just another urban highway. On occasion we'd see the water, but we also saw a lot of shops, restaurants, hotels and condo's. One thing I had a lot of trouble with was stopping. I couldn't go very fast in the RV if I wanted to - but on very steep, wet pavement sometimes even 20 or 30 mph was too fast to stop sometimes. On at least two occasions, I tried to stop for a yellow light and just started skidding. I had to take my foot off the brake and just honk - hoping the cars waiting to go would hold up, since there was no way I could stop. Fortunately, the other drivers were paying attention (or we just got lucky) and nobody hit us or even came close. Not the way I like to drive however.

We pulled over in Laguna Beach to stock up on some provisions (buy Milk and a few other things). It was a regular supermarket (Albertsons), but the prices were sky high - I suppose they have higher overhead than the stores other areas. I also took a minute to snap this shot on the hillside above the highway. This was typical of the hills along the coast all day - and these hills seem especially vulnerable to erosion and mudslides.

In the interest of making progress, I skipped all the brown signs and didn't bother to look at the list of things to see in the area (now I'm kicking myself just a bit, but we did make progress?). When we drove through Huntington Beach, we saw quite a few oil rigs, both offshore and these. Bit of a change from the usual ritzy stuff.

Just north of the oil fields, I turned off at Bolsa Chico Ecological Reserve, mostly just to take a break from driving. It was still raining, so Mom decided not to get out of the car, but I thought I'd grab the camera just to see what was around. It turns out that this is a great place for bird watching, there are even a few birds out on a stormy day such as today. There were quite a few American Coots swimming around, I don't think I've uploaded a picture of a coot before, so figured it was about time.

I think I have uploaded a picture of a Northern Pintail Duck before, but this was special enough I thought I'd upload it anyway (from Bolsa Chico E.R. this time of course).

There were other ducks in the ponds today, but too far out to get decent pictures. I also saw a Great White Heron, but again too far for a good shot.

But this bird - I don't think I've ever seen before (although in all honesty, I don't think I was noticing much about birds before this trip either). It is an American Avocet, very unusual beak that bends upwards. There were a couple of these in the E.R., so I'm really glad I stopped.

We continued heading north and considered stopping at some of the beaches, but in the cold rain, it wasn't too enticing (also, most seemed to require payment even just to stop for a few minutes). As we drove through LA, Mom kind of wanted to visit the Queen Mary or a Lighthouse she saw on the atlas, but I was bound and determined to get past LA or else. (Or else what, I'm not sure, but I didn't want to try finding a campground in LA). It was somewhat interesting driving through the different parts of towns and seeing how different, yet similar, they could be. A lot of the homes have red tile roofs (not the lighter tiles like we saw in Phoenix). We also drove through an older residential neighborhood near Loyola Marymount University - nice looking homes, mostly from the 1950's or 60's, nothing too fancy. Then we saw one with an 'Open House' sign for only $749,000. I think I'll stay where I'm at (in Shelton, WA that is).

Regarding that little side trip, what happened is that when we got near LAX, I saw a sign saying there was a tunnel up ahead and all trucks or 'vehicles carrying flamable ' stuff were forbidden from using the tunnel. After our little experience with the Boston 'big dig', I figured this applies to RV's with Propane tanks and I had to take a detour around the airport. However, the third leg of the detour wasn't marked (or I missed the last sign?), so I ended up wandering around a little bit - not too bad, I knew we needed to head west, then north - but it was kind of nice driving through a neighborhood rather than just commercial districts.

Finally, Hwy 1 went through some sort of morph (we actually had to turn off Hwy 1, then take an onramp onto Hwy 1. Go figure?). We went down and around a bend and started driving between bluffs and beachfront houses into Santa Monica. This is considered a 'Scenic Highway' and a sign said it was 27 miles long (of the 'Scenic Highway' along the Santa Monica Mountains I think.)

I suspected at first that Santa Monica is one house deep for 10 miles, but there is actually a town also. There are just a lot of beachfront homes squeezed between the highway and the beaches. The bluffs come right up to the highway on the other side (northbound), which we were on, and there is usually no room for houses or anything else on that side. In fact, most of this portion of the drive had rock slide warnings (and loose rocks on the road). Santa Monica had some lovely public beachs also, but a $5 charge to park. If it had been a warm, sunny day and we had wanted to stay for awhile, I'd have parked, but since we were just passing through, I kept going. There were several area's where it was legal to park along the side of the highway, but Mom didn't want to walk across the road (and I'd have to advise her against it if she did) and neither of us felt is was worth playing the U-Turn game again, so we just enjoyed the beaches while we drove.

We also passed several state beaches and noticed that they all required a fee to stop there, so finally I decided to at least stop and check how much the fee was. We pulled over at Malibu Creek State Park, which had a ranger station. The sign said the day use fee was $9, but when I asked the young woman at the window about turning around, since I didn't want to pay that much just to stop for a few minutes, she said we could have a complementary pass for 15 minutes. So we finally got to stop at another beach for a few minutes. The creek, and path, runs under bridge for Hwy 1 that has been painted with all sorts of sea life scenes.

We walked under the bridge and enjoyed a few minutes of the waves breaking, surfers actually surfing, and typical beach scenery.

Trying to stay within my 15 minutes however, I had to encourage Mom to start heading back (I think she was enjoying the beach). On the way, we passed a small bird sitting on a branch in the creek. We think it's a flycatcher of some sort, possibly a Black Phoebe? But we're not sure (see how much damage the unknowledgable can do with a reference book).

Malibu Creek SP had camping, it was on the opposite side of the highway from the beaches, but it looked like a nice place. However since it wasn't very late yet - we thought we'd go farther north before pulling over. We did drive a few miles (2 or 3?) farther north, then saw what looked like a large sand dune. I'm not sure dune is the correct term, since it also looked more like an alluvial fan, but made out of sand and rock. (A dune is blown by the wind I think). Mom was really impressed by it so I stopped to take a couple of pictures. What was really odd was that there were some kids about 1/2 way up that had what looked like snow boards - and they were slidding down the sand on their boards. (Not fast). It had to be really rough on their boards - like sandpaper maybe?

So we settled back in the car for a nice long drive, maybe even to Santa Barbara or ???

But wait, are those RV's along the beach just past the 'sand dune'? Check this out - there is another state park across the road where the campsites are right on the beach (not on a 40' bluff above the beach, maybe an 8' rock slope). And there were lots of empty sites (it was raining earlier, but not now). And - the cost started at $20 and kept going down (less for seniors, less even more for disabled - which Mom has the mirror hanger for) - so we only had to pay $5.50 for this. It might be early, but I figured we aren't going to find many places like this to camp! Big waves have been breaking 50' from the rig all afternoon. We both enjoyed just sitting and watching the waves break.

OK - given all the photo's I've uploaded, waves may be a bit much, but they were quite something here so I had to upload a couple?

And finally, Mom found some reasonably dry wood that someone had left by the firepit and got herself a nice little campfire going! I had bought campfire forks just for such an occasion at one of our Wal-marts and Mom had picked up some marshmellows along the way somewhere - so we had quite a nice little campout tonight. No sunset worth photographing, but tasty marshmellows!

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 139, Cumulative 17,055
Camped at Point Mugu SP (I think, they don't have a brochure), CA Coastal Highway

Provisions Secured: a small amount of very expensive groceries

Wildlife Observed: Squirrels, ducks, birds (as listed) as well as many seagulls and pigeons.

After spending three nights at Pio Pico Campground, we were really ready to hit the road again - and hoped to get back to civilization (cell phone service). It really felt like we'd been up in the mountains, after all we'd driven across the Imperial valley and through some very barren, rocky and burned out mountains to get there.

Shortly after we left the campground, we drove past Lake Otey and saw another red-tailed hawk. Since we're back on the road again, I stopped to try to get a shot of it.

Still feels somewhat rural, right? However, just after the lake our little two lane mountain road suddenly turned into a massive six lane highway in the middle of expensive housing developments, Otey Ranch and Eastlakein the city of Chula Vista. We continued following the highways until we finally reached I-5, where the signs listed only three more exits until the border! Mom seemed to think I'd lost my mind and we'd be in Mexico any minute, but I took the next exit and followed the road around until we reached Border Field State Park.

This Park is the southwestern most point in the US. This is just the sign at the park entrance of course, there is another 1.5 mile walk out to the beach, then another .5 miles to the fence at the border, part of it along a muddy dirt road - so this was close enough for Mom. I walked on out to the beach and was able to take a few pictures.

Along the walk I also spotted a Belding's Savannah Sparrow, as the park is located along the Tijuana Estuary - one of the few remaining natural estuaries in southern California.

I also started seeing Ice Plant again - it has been awhile. In fact, there were several different types of ice plant in the park. Although it's only February still, some were very much in bloom.

It took me about an hour to walk out to the beach and back, but I figured since one of the big objectives of the trip is to visit all four 'corners' of the lower 48 states - this was a milestone worth a few extra minutes. Mom worked on some of her Sabbath books in the RV while she waited and met some people who were heading out to a "Fandango" being held later today by folks on both sides of the fence.

Since we'd also left the campground a little late (we just had to visit the hot tub one more time this morning), it was already after 1 PM when we got back on I5, this time heading north. We went ahead and just drove through San Diego this trip, there are a lot of things to do there, but we're more interested in catching the rural sights and scenery than big city lights on this trip. Somewhere north of SD, we cut over to Highway 101. The signs proclaim this to be the "Historic Highway 101", but much of it looks like any other urban highway. Mom did like seeing so many flowers in bloom in February. We both got a kick out of seeing convertables with their tops down - this one with the beach in front, also in February.

Just past the convertable shot, we passed a beach that did allow some parking along the other side of the highway. It took awhile, but I finally got the rig turned around and found just enough room at the end of the line of cars to park for a late lunch. It was pretty cool, so we just enjoyed the view while we ate and didn't play in the surf any (we figure we'll see a lot more beaches on the drive home).

After lunch, we found a place to turn around and start heading north again. Just past the beach where we'd stopped, we saw a bunch of RV's and campers off to the side. It turned out this was Carlsbad State Park, which has camping on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The bluff along the campground is quite a bit higher then the bluff where we'd stopped the first time, but it looked like they might have empty spaces. While it was still early, I figured finding camping along the beach was going to be problematic the closer we got to Los Angeles, so we should check it out. However, when I tried to turn left into the campground, the sign said "U Turn Only" - so I had to turn around (head south again), find another spot where I could make another U-Turn (to head North), then go past the campground, make another U-Turn, then I could turn into the campground! Too bad I was driving an RV instead of a sports car, it might have been fun. However, we did make it, they did have open spaces ($20 for the highway side, $30 for the ocean side) - I got a space overlooking the ocean.

Mom entertained herself by feeding a friendly squirrel some stale bread while I took in the beach scene a bit.

The weather forecast calls for more rain tomorrow, overcast Monday, then Sunny and 72 F on Tuesday. According to the ranger, this bodes well for campsite availablity - often they are full, even this time of year. However, because of the rain they had spaces. He also said weekdays should have more availability - so by the time the weather turns nice again, folks will be back in school and at work - and we should find camping along the coast (we can hope).

So we have a nice, noisy ocean to lull us to sleep. Surprisingly we also had a few minutes of a wonderful sunset - it was so overcast I didn't expect much - but somehow just enough light squeeked through.

We'll continue on the northern leg, the last leg of our trip - tomorrow.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 83, Cumulative - 17016
Camped at Carlsbad SP, Southern California Coast

Provisions - Gas $29.49 for 9.107 gallons at 126,892