Recently I went on a fabulous camping trip to Big Sur and had the most amazing time! If you ever get the chance to camp, or even just visit Big Sur, California DO IT!
I should start by saying that I am an incredibly type A person and plan everything out. Everything, down to the tiniest details and I tend to get really stressed out when things are not organized or if I don't know what is going on. (itty-bitty control freak here)
So, normally I know in advance where I am staying what I need to bring, how off the grid I'm gonna be and I know exactly what to pack. Well, not this time, we ended up deciding not to go to Sequoia and head to Big Sur the day before we left and just in case you are unaware, campsites in California are booked about 6 months in advance!
So with our bags packed with god knows what and pretty much every camping item we own ready to go, we got up at 3:00am to leave by 4:00 in hopes of finding a walk-on campsite!
Here we are bright and early 3:00am excited and unsure of what was to come! I don't have any photos of the drive up there, but it was my first time driving up the coast of California and boy oh boy is it beautiful! Pretty amazing, I was pretty much in awe during the whole drive and around very turn it just gets more and more beautiful! If you get the chance, take a dive up the 1.
Well our first stop and first attempt to find a campsite was a success! We went to Andrew Molera State Park and since we arrived around 9:00am, we were able to snag a pretty good spot right as some other campers were packing up and heading out!
The only negative thing about this camp site was the trek with all of our stuff from the cars. It was about a mile or so hike in with all of our stuff, and all those beers and food we brought sure got pretty heavy!
This was our home for the next three days! We had a decent amount of shade on the tents for part of the day and we didn't have plans to hang out at the site during the hottest part of the day, so we were good to go!
All the sites had a picnic table, fire pit and bear box provided. Our fabulous camping buddies had a nice shade so we tossed that up over our "living room/dining room/kitchen" and were good to go!
Yeah, bear box, I was a bit nervous because it has been years since I have camped in an area where bears are a concern. But, thankfully, the bear boxes here were more to keep out the ground squirrels and the raccoons. The raccoons have quite a reputation at this park, and the squirrels are everywhere! They actually chewed a hole in our neighbors tent to get to their food! (Silly neighbors did not know what the bear box was for!)
The camp site was smack dab in the middle between the ocean and the river! So we ventured out to both! By the time we had finished carrying everything and setting up we were ready for a break! So we grabbed out chairs and some beers and made our way to the river!
River beer, if you are not familiar and have never experienced, is the best way to cool off on a hot day! Grab a chair, some beers, find a spot in the river, sit down, and enjoy! We were in the middle of a heat wave and it was over 100 in the sun, so this was pretty perfect!
This was also, how we spent most of the day. It was pretty amazing and incredibly relaxing! There is nothing like completely unplugging and not even having enough reception to Instagram a photo. It is pretty great!
After we came back from the river and had a bite to eat, we took a quick walk in the other direction and checked out the beach!
And we jumped, because that is what you do at the beach!
We hiked back the long way from the beach and were pretty tired! But, we had brought Kan-Jam, so we played a bit of that. If you are not familiar with Kan-Jam, it is apparently a really fun party/lawn game. I however can not throw a Frisbee to save my life to I'm a little bit bitter about it! I also can not catch a frisbee, so I usually stop with my shins, which results in multiple bruises. But hey, everyone else seems to just love it!
The sites were pretty big with a lot of space so even when I did get in there to play, and the frisbee when about 10-20 feet in the wrong direction, no one got too upset about it. Except for poor Aaron who had to be my teammate.
Before dinner, we got cleaned up. By cleaned up I am referring to some fabulous facial wipes and body wipes, because showers are not something you do when you are camping! We did have running water in the bathroom so we could wash our hands and brush our teeth!
The dinner menu for the night was some corn on the cob, veggie hotdogs, and a quinoa salad. Pretty freaking delicious if you ask me!
After we enjoyed our dinner we washed all our dishes and packed up the beat box with everything except the marshmallows! I am a firm believer that you are not camping unless you roast marshmallows!
We did not have just any marshmallows, nope, no we didn't. We had some of the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen in my life! I did however manage to eat two, or three of them!
After the marshmallows were put away and our teeth were brushed we just relaxed and enjoyed the night. It was still pretty warm, even though we were pretty close to the ocean. We were all pretty tired from the long day, but we still spent a little bit of time enjoying the stars. The sky is so clear and dark that every time you look up there are more stars! We could even see the milky way! Pretty amazing!
This is not a photo I took, just a photo of the Big Sur night sky. It does however, look pretty darn close to the sky we were looking at, tree and all! I would post the pictures of the sky I took, however as great as the new camera on the iPhone 5 is, all my photos camp out black. So I though I would borrow from google to give you a bit of an idea!
So there you have it! Day one was a huge success and all that stress about whether we would get a campsite or not was gone. All that was left was fun times, relaxation and a whole bunch of nature!
Stay tuned for more Big Sur Adventures!
No comments:
Post a Comment