California did not greet us with sunshine. We were met with howling winds, torrential rain and crazy ladies being arrested out the front of our San Fransisco motel room. All in all our plan was to keep driving until we hit sunshine.
The weather cleared momentarily as we stopped by Mavericks Beach. We had hoped that the storms may have brought big waves and big wave surfers, but we were bitterly disappointed. We drove the amazing coastline down to Santa Cruz and perched ourselves on the headland (comfortably sitting inside Maggie out of the gusty wind) and watched the surfers by the pier with the boardwalk fairground in the background, it felt like the set of a movie!
We arrived in the pretty town of Monterrey and the sky looked like it was clearing so we found a campsite. I spoke to the ranger and he informed me that more rain was due overnight and they were thankful for it as California had been suffering a drought. Coming from Australia, I appreciate this, but was still annoyed that Mother Nature couldn’t have held off for another week! However, by now we had the wet weather set up down pat! Awning up and trenches dug we ate dinner, went to bed and waited for the rain. We didn’t have to wait long. By morning it was still raining and our trenches had done the trick, making us look like a mini castle on the inside of our own moat. It was an easy decision not to pack up and leave, instead to stay in our dry abode as the rain was due to clear by the next morning. It did clear, and we did pack up, heading south to chase the sun.
We took the extremely scenic coast road all the way down past Big Sur, never tiring of the view until we found a secluded, primitive campsite just south of Morro Bay. Just after we had found a spot a bearded man in an old brown camper stopped right by us asking if he could take a photo of our ‘rig’ (such an American term). It turns out this bearded man was on his way back north after holidaying in Baja with his wife and two small children. He absolutely raved about Baja – the weather, the people, the food – so we figured if it’s safe enough for someone to take their kids, then it’s safe enough for us! He took a few snaps, gave more friendly advice and left leaving Hayden a new t-shirt and more stickers for under the bonnet – he has a mate who has an overland website and is constantly giving him paraphernalia and he figured he didn’t need anymore ‘Proven Overland’ stuff, deeming Hayden worthy of taking it off his hands. We enjoyed a dry, peaceful evening being lulled to sleep by the crashing waves. Waking up to warm sunshine was equally enjoyable and we hit the road. We had a brief stop in beautiful Santa Barbara, mostly to use the Internet, but also making use of the free street library picking up a few old fashioned paperbacks. We had found a county campground a touch further south and headed there to check it out. Pulling off the main road we were instantly bombarded with RV after RV after RV, all parked along the break wall. Reaching the end of ‘RV Row’ we discovered the campground we were looking for was closed. We considered pitching up next to the RVs, but the sign clearly stated no tents. Hayden remembered seeing a teeny campsite back where we pulled off so we turned around to head back. What we found was a little campground, one side tucked into the hill and the other right on the break wall with a few tent sites left, and wifi! We pitched the tent and watched the sunset behind the ten or so surfers playing amongst the waves. As the sun was going down a guy approached us interested in Maggie. He had just decked out his own van to drive across America from New York to San Francisco. He had clearly been watching the same YouTube videos as Hayden as he too had used skateboard bearings to create his pull out drawers. He had moved to San Francisco to broaden his health drink business, having been quite successful on the east coast, the next step was to tackle organic-loving California. He was kind enough to give us a few free samples of ‘Switchel’ and it was pretty tasty and oozed natural goodness. We enjoyed some banter before Gareth left us to make the night drove back up to San Francisco, whilst we enjoyed another sleep to the sound of waves.
The morning sea view was just as peaceful as the evening one, although we were surprised that there weren’t any surfers out. We left to tackle the busy roads of LA, our 90 days allowed in America fast reaching their expiration date. First stop on our fleeting visit was British Pacific Land Rover parts dealer. Marty kindly helped us stock up the spares box, throwing in a discount and some coffee mugs, snapping himself a picture of Maggie and sending us on our way with well wishes. Next stop the beach. We found a parking spot on Venice beach, climbed over the sand dunes to dip our toes in, quickly remembering that the Pacific Ocean in this part of the world is not that warm in March! We sat and watched others trying to navigate the waves before going back to the car so Hayden could get out his skateboard and fulfil a lifelong fantasy of skateboarding Venice Beach. He went on ahead whilst I walked, taking in all that Venice Beach and Muscle Beach had to offer. People were enjoying all sorts of outdoor activities – the outdoor gym, tennis, squash, basketball, bike riding, skateboarding, roller blading, surfing, singing and some were just generally being strange. We watched the sun go down, tried to take a picture in one of the lifeguard huts like Baywatch, got in trouble from the lifeguard for trying to do so, made said lifeguard laugh when we asked if this was Baywatch beach. Absolutely nailed being a dicky tourist. Los Angeles isn’t really a city that caters for campers (homeless and down and outs who sleep in tents don’t count here), so we decided to head south along the coast until we got somewhere that looked appropriate to camp, as well as getting closer to the Mexican border. It turns out that the coast is full of immaculate mansions, car parks with beach access that were locked and State Parks with gates that were also locked. So we drove on into the night, looking on the bright side that we don’t have to deal with LA traffic. We drove all the way to San Diego, arriving at a campground that was also locked. We contemplated pitching our tent by the gate, but decided against it, instead we headed to Walmart. We have learnt during our time in America, that you are often allowed to camp out in Walmart car parks. Our problem is that we kinda need to pitch a tent, making us a little more obvious, but we went to see what all the fuss is about anyway. This particular Walmart had a security guard driving around, so we drove right up to him and blatantly asked ‘can we sleep here?’ He politely informed us that we cannot sleep in this Walmart carpark, but we are allowed to sleep in the Best Buy carpark, right next door. We drove to the Best Buy side (note it is actually the same carpark)and parked the car. I don’t think we had any intention of trying to get proper sleep, but we were pleased to find we could connect to the Walmart wifi. I set about trying to find a more restful location whilst Hayden became preoccupied by the looney tune across the way, so much so he even pulled out his binoculars to see what the crazy guy was up to. He came to the conclusion that he was collecting snails from the garden and and then giving them a sacrificial burning. No, we would not be getting a good night’s sleep here. We eventfully found a gate free campground, pitched the tent and collapsed into sleep around 3am. Unfortunately we were not afforded the luxury of a sleep in due to needing to get a number of jobs done before crossing the border. I left Hayden to do some work on Maggie and walked about 40 minutes along the horse trail (this was a horse friendly campground, all sites equipped with a gated area to tether your horse)to a Starbucks to join all the other wifi/computer nerds. It was an exhausting day, but we’re now equipped with Mexican car insurance, various medications from the doctor and well educated on Central American travel. Time to tackle this border before Trump builds his wall.
California Part 3
