November 12: The Pacific

Spent Sunday night at Outback Pizza in Quartzsite - only place with a live band after 6pm (all the old people go to bed early...)

Monday, 4pm they were going hard at BeerBellies (see old people comment above - if you are going to be in bed by 7, you need to start early).

The plan was to drive through Joshua Tree NP again - it is just beautiful - and try and find an open site in one of the campgrounds so that I could do one or 2 hikes.  Unfortunately nothing was available - the whole first-come-first-serve approach in some of the parks really suck.  In any case, stayed for free at the Tortoise Rock casino just outside the park, but no hikes for me.

The view from the casino

On the way to the coast - evidently the youts have too much time on their hands

 AND THEN I GOT TO THE PACIFIC - the end-point of the trip.

My people - the pelicans

Spent 2 nights at Point Mugu State Park after persuading the Park Ranger that my 33ft RV was really the same as a 31ft one (the limit they have).  The park is really just an old road right on the beach with parallel parking spaces for the RVs and it ends in a dead end with no turn-around place - hence the length limit.  You need to be able to turn around your RV in a very small space.

The only 3 die-hard surfers out

I think the Germans think they are crossing Africa... they ship their custom RV's from Germany kitted out for something a bit more serious than the PCH

Weird terns - looks like a cross between a seagull and a tern, but is actually called an Elegant Tern - thanks LindaP.

Water was cold and the wind was up to 40knots, but I got a few swims and some body surfing in - was exhilarating.

Then the biggest luck of the whole trip hit.  I could not find anywhere else to stay on the coast as everything was booked for the weekend, but I decided to drive up to Carpinteria to just look at the coast.  Got as far as Rincon Parkway - where there is a campground that was closed by CalTran so that the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) could be repaved.  I was driving down the PCH and saw one or two RVs parked in the campground (the campground is also just parking spaces next to the PCH).  I stopped and asked them if it was OK to stay there overnight and they said that CalTran (California Transportation dept) had decided the previous night that they were opening up this campground again as they repavement project had been delayed (yea for bureaucratic inefficiencies).  End of the story was I could book 3 nights in one of the most amazing campsites I have stayed in.

An abandoned oil terminal - there a quite a few still working offshore oil platforms here

Having fun on the beach

Even got the waveski out for a surf in the beach break.  Was nothing epic, but 1 great ride and one sinus cleaning wipeout - so par for the course.

The best part was sitting on my stoep/deck watching pelicans, dolphins and seals meandering by - was blissful.

Check the crowds out there - everyone surfs....

Kelp beds everywhere. Funny part was that there were these kelp strings attached to rocks. Seems what happens is the kelp starts growing on a rock, and then the kelp gets too big and lifts the rock and they start moving down the coast

Dolphin in the background - they are a lot darker than the east coast dolphins

Met some really nice people as well - Greg and Loretta who live in Burbank (an hour away). They have an old RV that they use to come camp here the whole time.  They invited me to dinner in Ventura on Sunday night and we had they best evening discussing the state of America.  Was lots of fun.

Greg going for a swim