Big Sur

Big Sur - Plaskett Creek Campground

September 5th - 8th, 2016

It is a hard thing to leave your friends and family, even to embark on new adventures.  I just wanted to bring them with us!  We headed north, since we had uncharacteristically reserved a spot for ourselves up at a campground in Big Sur.  We needed to kill a few days first, so we settled in the Los Padres National Forest area.  Of course, we rarely book a spot and it was getting late, so we sort of stumbled into an RV campground on the side of the interstate.  Somehow however, in picking our spot, we inadvertently decided to act like complete novice campers.  We ended up with a spot that was altogether covered in thorns, next to the interstate, a few spots away from a party that lasted about two days, and directly underneath the only street light in the entire campground.  I’m going to blame our site selection on the long day of driving and the setting sun.  Even so, the place had mini-golf and a pool, so the kids gave it two thumbs up.  Also, the RV park owners, a sweet elderly Korean couple, absolutely loved us and gave us free ice and a book that contained the wife’s published poetry.  So…somehow, that campground still manages to maintain a warm place in my heart.  All this goes to show you how far-reaching kindness can really be. So be nice people!  It makes up for our many flaws!

One night, we decided to go into town for some pizza and stumbled across a great little town called Frazier Park that is nestled up at the bottom of Mount Pinos.  The pizza owners suggested that we follow the mountain road to the very top for a nice view.  Always, always ask the locals what you should see before you leave a place.  The Los Pinos Recreation Area sat at the top of the mountain and it was pristine old growth forest.  Our only regret was that we hadn’t found it sooner.  I doubt we could have stomached the campground (at over 8000 ft, it was COLD!), but it was a trail that I would definitely go back to explore deeper. It was hard to believe that our campground, which sat basically in the desert, was only 30 minutes away from this magical place.  It was like two different worlds.

We made it out to the coast and set up camp before dark.  We woke to the glorious waves of Big Sur crashing up against our realization that we did not have anything to eat in the cooler.  At 9am we headed out to “get some breakfast”.  We returned well after dark. You see….this is what is great about not having a schedule.  A little thing like that could have killed a crammed up day!  But as usual, we had nothing planned, so breakfast was our day.  The only problem with this gorgeous stretch of the Pacific coast is that a fried egg at the nearest restaurant costs $4.  Perhaps if I had been travelling by myself down the coast, I could have stomached that cost.  But at five people, I just couldn’t bite the $20 for each of us to consume one fried egg.  Especially since the eggs would inevitably be “too fancy” for at least 3 of these people and probably pushed aside anyway.  You know….like maybe they would have come in one of those tiny cups or have a sprig of mint “touching” it.  It took us all the way to Monterey (almost two hours later) before we finally found breakfast.  We ended up paying $45 for breakfast anyway.   But it was delicious and I was happily in the town that I had been dying to come back to anyway! (Our last trip we only stopped in briefly at a playground).  Monterey was both the homebase of my favorite author, John Steinbeck, and the literary setting for one of my favorite novels, Cannery Row. The rest of the family was super patient with me and ate Dippin Dots while I ran around and completely geeked out down the real life Cannery Row.   We spent a whole day there, watched a mess of elephant seals and lucked out to a dinner by sunset on the side of the fabled Big Sur Coast. Tom was smart enough to  jump on the opportunity to make a hilarious family series of silloughettes.  So fun.  On the way back to camp, Olive remarked, “I thought we were just going out for breakfast?”

If you are ever in Big Sur, Plaskett Creek is the campground to go to.  The sites are giant and green and filled with big beautiful trees.  You won’t get a shower, but you won’t miss it.   This is a site that we actually did reserve about a month in advance, since we knew for sure we wanted to camp on the beach.  We got a sweet spot next to an enormous partially downed tree that quickly became kids’ camp for the entire campground.  Two separate families became our collective camp and the kids spent three straight days climbing trees, swinging on rope swings and playing on the beach. 

I had always thought that sitting by the ocean was one of my favorite things to do.  On this trip, though, I realized how much I loved sitting on the cliffs and watching it from above.  There are moments there that I hope I never forget.  Each morning I would wake up before the rest of the family and cross the deserted Hwy 1, shrouded in fog.  Bird song and the bark of seals would lead me straight through the tall grass to the edges of the cliffs over Plaskett Creek. Scrambling down the paths worn down by other brave souls, I would make my way to a particular rock that jutted out, higher and further than all the others.  It has always been in my nature to peek out from the top.  And that is where I would spend my quiet moments before the sun finally came up. There was so much power looking over the point of that precipice.  The waves rise in such a powerful way, swelling with all that unseen and mysterious life in them.  Like the collective breaths of all those unfathomable creatures.  It crashes savagely on the rocks and up against cliff walls. The small shimmer of seals and dolphins in the distance, skimming the water, is in stark contrast to the terrifying chaos that happens on the rocks just below your feet.  It is a compelling thing to be that close to so much at the same time. 

It is a beautiful world we live in and I hope my kids will always be brave enough to scramble out like this and do that thing they really want to do.