California - The Sunshine State

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Suzanne here…

Getting out of Nevada took bloody ages. In hindsight it was a mistake to leave Vegas on a Sunday. Lots of weekending Americans were doing the same thing. It quite felt strange crossing into California knowing that this was going to be the last State and the last leg of our trip.

Without a road map of California we were travelling blind until we stopped off in Baker to buy one, and have a quick and cheap lunch at Del Taco (mmmm). Referring to our newly purchased map it seemed that our original plan to stop off at Joshua Tree National Park was a bit foolish. We had to be in Santa Cruz in a few days and Joshua Tree wasn’t actually on our route. Lake Isabella seemed more sensible, so that’s where we headed.

Eight hours after leaving Vegas we finally arrived at Lake Isabella. There was a choice of campgrounds, we picked Boulder Gulch. It was pretty quiet and the usual American campsite set up - dusty and squirrel infested but large pitches with the ubiquitous picnic table and fire pit. We stayed a couple of days doing very little except strolling round the lake and, popping into nearby Kernville for supplies.

Our next stop was just a little further north, at Sequoia National Forest. On the way we stopped off at the library at Three Rivers to go online. The very friendly librarian wanted to talk to us about the British TV show ‘Doc Martin’ but we don’t watch it. They were having a book sale, so we picked up some extra reading material.

We had to pay $20 to get into the park, but didn’t really begrudge it. It’s a huge park and must take a lot of maintenance. It’s stunningly beautiful too, much like Yosemite. Time was getting on so we chose to camp for a night at the first campground we came to, Potwisha. It was pretty busy, but we found a good spot with plenty of space around us. I registered and had a chat to the ranger who told me that a bear had been seen in the camp the previous week so we needed to be extra careful about putting all our food and toiletries into the bear locker.

The following day we headed to the Lodgepole Visitor Centre for showers, and to do some laundry. Just why people take their children into the showers to torture them I don’t know, it must be some parent secret. As usual a child was screaming its head off the whole time I was in the shower. We also popped by to visit General Sherman - a giant sequoia tree said to be, by volume, the largest known living tree on earth. Very impressive.

The Sequoia Park brochure told us that Big Meadow campground was free. Well, we love a free campground, so that’s where we headed next. The usual pit toilets, but that doesn’t bother us. There was hardly anyone else camping there. With the rest of the park so busy it’s a mystery to us why people don’t want to camp in a free campground just because there are no flushing toilets. None of the park campgrounds have showers anyway, so it’s not as if the campgrounds with a fee offer that much more. We found a quiet spot and ended up staying for two nights. It was a great base to explore the rest of Sequoia, and Kings Canyon, parks from. Such a beautiful part of the world, I do hope we come back one day.

With a couple of days to go before we had to be in Santa Cruz we had time for one more stop, in the Sierra National Forest. We’d met a couple who recommended Shaver Lake, so that’s where we went. Unfortunately we weren’t keen. It was really busy, and the campgrounds were very gloomy. By now was getting a bit late to move on really. However we were loath to spend two nights of our last couple of weeks somewhere we didn’t like, so we pressed on. The next potential spot was Bass Lake, but when we got there it was absolutely packed with families. Even if we’d wanted to stay, there were no free camp pitches that we could see. By this time we were feeling a little worried about just where we were going to sleep. There were a couple of campgrounds marked on our map a few miles from the lake that we thought were worth trying. After a while the road gave way to a bumpy, dusty track. We were now getting quite concerned, we really didn’t want to be stuck out in the wilderness at night with nowhere to sleep.

Eventually we reached a campground. It was ok, a bit busy but we were desperate so we found a spot. As soon as we pulled up a drunken American woman came over and started to give David grief about driving too fast (I really don’t think he was). She was most unpleasant - swearing and blowing her stinking cigarette smoke at us. I just wasn’t prepared to camp next to the evil old hag, so we moved on once again.

We had one last chance, Grey’s Mountain campground. Really, by this point we had to stay there. Luckily for us it turned out to be very nice. Pit toilets and no water (we had plenty, early on we’d learnt that you could fill up large water bottles for a few cents at most supermarkets) but a lovely setting and reasonably priced. We found a quiet spot overlooking the river. We couldn’t believe our luck. We pitched our tent and then had a good chat to one of the camp hosts, lovely woman. We were very relieved to have found somewhere so agreeable at last. In the morning we walked along the river until we found a deserted spot to read and paddle. It was a stunning setting and a lovely relaxing day.

So, on to Santa Cruz. With the exception of our brief stop-over in LA, this was the first place we’d been to on our trip that we’d visited before. Partly this was down to the Adobe on Green B&B. We’d stayed there a couple of years ago and loved it. So even though it was way over our travelling budget we couldn’t resist treating ourselves to another stay. Such a beautiful, cosy place. We settled in before walking down to the Boardwalk then back into town for dinner followed by drinks at 99 Bottles of Beer. The following day we just hung around Santa Cruz and made the most of the slice of luxury of the Adobe. In the evening David popped out to collect a pizza from Pizza My Heart (one of the best of our trip) and we borrowed a couple of DVDs from the Adobe’s collection and settled in for a cosy night.

A big reason for revisiting this part of the world was that last time I’d missed out on Salinas and the Steinbeck Centre. I’m a huge Steinbeck fan so this was a must see for me. The museum was a little disappointing if I’m honest, but the visit was made worthwhile for me by one exhibit - Rocinante, Steinbeck’s actual camper that he travelled in whilst writing ‘Travels with Charley’.

Driving down the Big Sur coast, we were a bit concerned about finding somewhere to camp as on our last trip we’d had to book campgrounds months in advance. We headed to Andrew Molera as we knew they didn’t accept advance bookings. Fortunately they had plenty of spots available. I think that this was mainly due to the fact that you have to park in the car park then carry your tent and belongings on foot for about a mile to the campground. This didn’t really bother us, and actually it was nice to camp without any cars around. As it turned out we pitched our tent on top of a squirrels home. He didn't seem to mind too much, and kept us company for the couple of days we were there.

The following day we headed into Monterrey for the final reason we’d revisited this part of California, Monterrey Aquarium. Last time the queue was just too long so this time we’d booked in advance. Although as it turned out it was a lot quieter and probably not necessary. Well, it was worth the wait. Hands down the best aquarium I’ve ever been to. I particularly loved the octopus, seahorses, sea dragons, jellyfish and the ray touch-pool. Amazing stuff. We spent a good few hours in there before leaving for some fish and chips (no, I can’t say I did feel guilty) and a look around Monterrey then back to camp.

We’d seen everything we wanted to in the area so the next day we decided to get a head start on our southbound journey. We knew there was a campsite at Pismo Beach as we’d stayed there once before, so we thought we’d make an overnight stop there. On the way down we popped into Morro Bay, so it was late afternoon by the time we arrived in Pismo. As usual, it was rather foggy there, in fact it was quite cold. They had one pitch left for one night only, so we were lucky to be able to stay, and the campsite is very pretty. A quick trip out for coffee and cake helped warm us up a little bit.

Time to move on again. It was scary to think this time it would be our last camping stop. We made our way to Cachuma Lake. We knew that this was huge, well over 400 camping pitches, and that the site was another no reservations / first come first served place. However we were still a bit worried as it was the Friday of Labour Day weekend and so most campsites were going to get very full very quickly. We arrived pretty early, about 10am, and the place was already almost full. We were very glad we’d thought to travel down to Pismo the previous day so we could get to Cachuma nice and early. We found a good pitch and got set up.

As it was still early we decided to visit nearby Solvang. For those of you who don’t know it, Solvang is frankly barking mad. It was founded in the 1900’s by a group of Danes who seemed to want to recreate their homeland. Most of the buildings are built in a Danish style, or at least an interpretation of it. In some ways it is unbelievably tacky, but actually I still found it quite charming. Although it seemed to me that some people are confusing Holland and Austria with Denmark...

Back at the campsite, we found it was now full. It was lucky that American campsites are so big really, so nobody was camped too close. Still, it was a rather more boisterous affair than our usual camping experiences. We decided that the key was to stay up late and drink enough so that we didn’t get too annoyed by the noise. Still, it was a nice site with good facilities, and the lake was beautiful.

The next day we popped into Santa Barbara for a look round and a bit of a shopping spree. Then it was back to our ‘peaceful’ camp. More beer was clearly in order. We did have to laugh at the family nearby with the industrial strength lights, heaven forbid that camping should make you feel like you are actually outdoors rather than in a fully lit house. This was it, our last night of camping and nearly the last night of our trip.

In the morning we took down our camp, leaving our trusty tent by the bins with a note saying it was free to a good home (it was gone within ten minutes). As we headed out someone nabbed our pitch, they’d turned up late on the Friday and had been left with a poor pitch so were glad to move. We stopped off at an outlet village near Camarillo for some lunch, and I managed to get some new trainers. Then we hit L.A.

Our last night was going to be spent at my friend Becky’s house in Studio City. Very sadly, she was not actually going to be there. A real shame as I was really looking forward to seeing her and her new baby. Oh well, she kindly left the keys for us so at least we could stay there. We spent some time sorting through our stuff into piles of keep / rubbish / charity shop. We headed out to look for a charity shop with little hope of finding one (it was a Sunday) but were lucky enough to find one open nearby. We then stocked up on some supplies and headed back to Becky’s. We attempted to go out for dinner but everywhere was so busy that in the end we got a takeaway pizza and a bottle of wine and sat in the garden. Not an action-packed last evening, but very pleasant.

After breakfast the next day we sadly drove to the airport. Dropping the hire car off, we found out that we’d done 4135 miles during our time in the USA. Check-in was a nightmare (possibly due to it being Labour Day). Two hours later we got to the front of the queue and nabbed the last two seats together.

So, this was it. After nearly a year away it was time to go home.

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