Back Online....

Yes! It has been a long time.... We finally have a new laptop after the mishap at BestBuy. We have made it to Houston, Texas and have done so many things along the way. I found the last post I had written and saved on our old laptop before the Chocolate Milk Incident. To get things started for the day, I thought I would go ahead and post it, even though it was a couple of months ago. Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me to start writing again. I hope to write often while I catch you up with our trip so far, so please check back every couple of days for new posts. For now, here is that post...

CAMPING AT LAST!
You are not going to believe this. We did it! We spent the night in San Simeon State Park. We camped! Was it beautiful? Magical? Perfect? The beauty was there all right. This park is right on the beach, which you can reach by going under the freeway and we found a lovely site. It had the ocean view and privacy. Everything else seemed frustrating. We couldn’t really level the car accurately, since we had not installed any bubble levels inside the van. The pop-top wouldn’t stay up due to too much weight from Golf clubs, etc., in the roof carrier, so we had to come up with a quick brace solution, so the boys could sleep up there. We couldn’t get the refrigerator going, we had bought way too much food, and it wasn’t all fitting in the cooler. The sun was setting, and we had forgot to pay for the campsite and buy wood at the front kiosk, which was about 1 mile downhill from where we were, so we were unable to have a campfire, which was probably a good thing, since I forgot to buy marshmallows. Worse than anything else, we left our very favorite pillows at the hotel in Aptos, and we were very far from any Bed, Bath and Beyond. It was dark, we were tired, and quite honestly, we didn’t really know what we were doing. This was the first time we ever tried to camp Eurovan style.

Now, I have camped every year of my life growing up with my family. In the college years, I continued camping, even so far as living in my van at various state parks, backpacking in Big Sur and hitching across the USA with a backpack. And here I was 10+ years later, and I had become a whiny non-camper. I had all my worries about failing on this trip culminate into a big giant force that lay over my head telling me I would never be able to be comfortable in this outdoorsy-ness. There were mosquitoes, there was dirt, and there were no lights shining the way to the outhouse, just dark, pitch dark... Had I really become one of those non-campers who complained about cold, and dirt and bugs?

I was a mess, feeling defeated, I wondered why we had come out here in the middle of nowhere thinking it would be fun, and decided to go to bed with my fleece sweats as my pillow. Husband was also overwhelmed at first as we unpacked, but seemed determined to enjoy the night. The boys were all outside in the dark when they called me to join them. I went outside and that was when everything changed. The night was lit up by a mystical full moon. It had been waiting, hidden in the clouds waiting to impress those who might stay up to see it.

“Wow,” I said, “so that is why we are out here.”

A surprisingly good night was spent in the van, and I woke up to a beautiful sunrise. I began to read waiting for the others to wake up. What was this? Fresh air? Quiet? Yes, all that. Heaven. Maybe this was worth the bugs, dirt and lack of bathroom lighting.

When everyone was awake, we had breakfast and quickly packed up to get ready to go to Hearst Castle. We had bought our tickets for the 10:20am tour. New to both of us, Husband and I were absolutely amazed at this castle on a hill. The kids loved it, too. Now we were told that there is no touching, and it is true. No touching anything that isn’t cement or iron railing outside and nothing inside, while staying on the tour carpet. We were warned that this might be very hard for small children and that maybe my 5 year old would be too young. However, we found that there is so much to see and our tour guide moved us through so fast, that there is not really a chance for the young ones to get into too much trouble. Our sons, who are obsessed with castles and knights, thought this was all so cool. Husband and I both felt strange at the end of the tour and movie. This guy was not someone who shared the wealth. His didn’t use his money for good, just for flash. Yet the state park was celebrating him as though he was the greatest man in American history. It was an interesting conversation at the end for the kids. “Yes, wonderful tour to see, though it is too bad he didn’t help people with just a fraction of that money.” Of course, now California State Parks are making a killing. My youngest was free and we still paid $50 to see a small part of the estate, and there are 5 or 6 tours you can see.

Since we needed pillows, we decided to leave our beautiful camping spot, to head to San Luis Obispo. We bought a few camping items, a wooden brace for the pop top, new sandals for our little guy, and made an appointment at our Eurovan shop, Go Westy in Los Osos, and headed back to a hotel in Morro Bay. After a night to get ourselves clean and the food into a refrigerator for the night, we went to Morro Bay State Park the next morning to camp out for the week while we waited to take our van in for a few repairs.

We felt a lot more comfortable camping already. We were so happy to be finally resting for awhile in the same place. We bought tons of ice, since our refrigerator still wasn’t working. This park is great. Close to the beach, a state park run golf course and driving range and a children’s museum that teaches kids all about the estuary and the bay. After two days, we realized our van’s camping battery was dead. So we had no lights to light the night, though the flashlights were fine. Oh, and we finally had our campfire with marshmallows. Though we realized we had no outside lighting either and we needed a lantern. The list of items that needed to be fixed or we needed to camp more comfortably for the week began to grow. In a few days, life got hard. My oldest son got a fever. It was a hot one and he slept for two days. By the third day he felt better and his fever was gone. That was about the same time that my younger son started his fever. He had his for the next two days, and the day we were leaving, my husband started to feel bad and took a 4 hour nap. Also, we woke that morning to find the van not starting. We called AAA and had a tow truck come out to give us a jump start, but it didn’t work. He thought it must be the starter. “Great!” we thought, another item to add to the list. He told us to call him back when we were packed and ready to be towed. We were packing up and waiting to hear from Go Westy about a loaner car, when I told Husband he had to wake up so we could get out of camp ground. All of a sudden like by magic the car mysteriously started up as easily as it had always done. Just a hint to all Eurovan camper owners, you can’t start the car if you have either of the front seats turned toward the back. So we happily skipped the tow truck and headed for the hotel once more. All the sick members of our family were happy to be in a bed watching TV while I was dropping the van off and picking up a loaner car.

Within a few days, the van and the family were as good as new, items were improved and fixed and we bought all the supplies we needed to begin a camping adventure properly without fear.
We love the Morro Bay area, and added it to the list of possible future places to live, as we headed off towards Santa Barbara.