Christmas

One of the tough things about living life on the road is being away from friends and family at the holidays.  This year we will for sure have our Chicago boy, Lucas, here for the Christmas weekend, but Jeff (who lives in San Francisco) has a new job and it just might not work out for him to come down.  We carry a little bit of Christmas decorations with us and several of us nomads in the park have lights, so here is a shot of our decorated trailer!

Photogenic San Diego

I am excited to be staying near San Diego for December for a lot of reasons.  We have some good friends in the area whom we will be visiting, there is the great zoo and safari park, Balboa Park, Coronado Island, etc. It is also a great city for photography, which I am starting to realize is becoming a real passion for me.  We headed down to Coronado to catch views of the San Diego skyline the other night and it was great.

This is the ferry dock on Coronado Island where you can take the $8 boat over to downtown

The last light of the sunset on the city. Disappointed there were no clouds, but we'll be back!

Coronado Bridge from the San Diego side

I loved these old tugboats under the bridge and the full moon coming up behind it

Final view of  the San Diego skyine from the beach at Coronado

San Diego--Santee Lakes Park

We are spending December in the San Diego suburb of Santee, where they have built an amazing regional park around a water reclamation project that recycles water for the community.  Seven lakes which have bass, catfish and are stocked with trout are surrounded by picnic areas walking trails and a campground run by the city with about 300 full hookup campsites.  Many snowbirds spend one or more months here in the winter and I have to say that Santee had done a great job with this.  They must make a bundle on camping fees and the people who stay here spend money in the economy--a win-win for something built around a water treatment facility.  The bonus is that we are about 25 minutes drive from San Diego and all it offers! It is very beautiful and I will be posting pictures from here over the next several weeks.

Dana Point--Continuing South

We reluctantly left Jalama Beach, agreeing that it was one of the nicest places we've stayed this year. There were only a few days before we were due in San Diego where we have a full month reservations at a park, so we had reservations for four nights in Doheney State Beach in Dana Point.  This was in the same general area of Orange County where we stayed for a little while last spring.  Our site was great, right on the beach and pretty roomy.  Nice views of the sunset and a very short walk or drive to the Dana Point harbor.  Here are a couple photos of our campsite and the sunsets here:

The sunset shots were take from the harbor, which was quite nice with lots of boats, shops, restaurants, etc.

The beach at Dana Point was just OK, not great, the weather was threatening a few days of much-needed rain and, frankly, we were both about ready to reach San Diego and settle down for a bit. So we pulled up stakes a day early and headed to our first winter home.

Dana Point harbor just after sunset

Happy Thanksgiving!

With our boys far away (one is in Colombia for two weeks!) we decided to forego the Jalama Burger and cook a nearly traditional Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  We had a small turkey loaf, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, wonderful farmers market green beans and cranberry sauce.  It was a little feast here with a million-dollar view.  Even Tucker got some!

I'll close this post with some late afternoon beach views from the other day and a wish that all who read this had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We all have so much to be thankful for and it is great to be reminded again to do so.

Best Dog Beach Ever

As we have traveled down the coast of California, we've gotten to take Tucker to many great beaches where he can run.  Never have we camped right on a great dog beach outside our door like we have here.  He is going to miss daily runs on the beach when leave tomorrow for San Diego :-(

Oil Drilling off the Santa Barbara Coast

For thousands of years, the Chumash people lived in this area and had a village right here at the mouth of Jalama Creek.  They used to make ocean-worthy canoes from wood planks and rope, caulked with tar that they found washed up on the beach.  Like the Gulf of Mexico, this area seeps oil from the ocean floor and sits on a huge lake of oil.  There are three huge oil rigs that we can see from Jalama Beach that have been there for decades.  Back in 1969 there was a huge oil spill, the third-largest in US history and the largest ever in California.  I remember seeing pictures of oiled birds and fouled beaches back then and it was my first exposure to an environmental disaster.

There hasn't been a large spill since then, but the oil rigs are somehow ominous on the horizon, because we know what could happen. At night they are all lit up like Christmas trees and at this time of year, the sun sets right behind one of them as seen from Jalama Beach. All these pictures were taken with a telephoto lens, so the platforms look smaller in real life.