Coastal camping

During summer vacations in CA, one activity we enjoy is going camping. In other posts on this blog you may have read about us "glamping" at Costanoa, up Highway 1 in between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. There's a beautiful bluff walk there and it's one of our favorite places. On other occasions we have gone car camping with our own tents and sleeping bags. 

This post is my memories of a camping trip in 2016. Here's a video recap. My brother-in-law, James, was able to reserve a site not far from his home, at San Clemente State Beach. It's a popular site and reservations are usually full months in advance, so we were fortunate to be flying back for summer just in time to join him and his kids. It was my nephew's first time camping.

After we stopped to buy food and drinks, we checked-in and set up camp, lounged around for a bit, then went for a walk along the beach. There was a nice walkway to get down to the beach and a tunnel under the train tracks that the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner travels on. One summer we took that train from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles Union Station, stopping overnight in Santa Barbara to go kayaking - but that's another post.

 We crossed over the tracks on the way back, up an eroding, sandy trail, to fire up the grill for dinner. We heard the train a few times during the afternoon, but it doesn't run at night, so we didn't have to worry about disturbed sleep.

After dinner, we went back down the path to watch the sunset. Alex scrambled up to the top of the bluff - Mia was miffed she wasn't big enough to go. Maggie sat with her young cousins to watch the beautiful sunset and the last train of the evening rumble through.

It sure cooled off after sunset so we started a campfire and kept warm until deciding to crawl into our tents for the night.

James was up early with the little kids, so he started making breakfast. We were spoiled with a big meal instead of our usual oatmeal or instant noodles. The big kids were sleeping in, and Chris was comfortable at camp, so I took Mia for a walk down to the beach again.

By the time we got back, it was almost time to pack up and check-out. We had a great time and hope to go back again.