Here Today, Gone To Morro: September 2012

This is what the Ranger asked me as I handed over my driver's license to purchase something at the Pinnacles National Monument general store. We had been trying for a long time to camp with some friends of ours and this was the only weekend when we could get it together.

Everyone kept telling us that it was going to be hot. I checked the forecasts on weather.com and NOAA, and all sites were telling us high 80's. So, okay, while not ideal, it was definitely do-able and especially knowing the nights would be chilly.

So, again, the comment, "Did you want to escape the fog?" I did a double-take, and she proceeded to tell me that the temp today was going to be 102 and tomorrow 109. What the heck???

We arrived in the dark the night before and the night air was crisp and quite chilly. Our modest tent trailer has no A/C or other comforts of home. The nearest restroom was quite a ways away. We did have electric hook-ups but we didn't have anything we needed to plug in. This was turning out to be quite the camping trip.

Well, with the heat kicking in, we knew that a hike or outside activity was out of the question! We hit the campground swimming pool in the morning and then had lunch. It was scorching hot. We tried to get the kids to go to sleep, so we all piled in the Cragheads' cabover camper (which gloriously had A/C). We hung out for a while and tried to get the kids to sleep. Nothing was working. P was having a lot of tantrums and a major meltdown. Could you blame her? She was really tired, super hot, and probably hungry. Finally, I suggested to RT that we take a little drive in our air conditioned car and hopefully P could get some rest. That did the trick! This is how we were able to get photos of the Pinnacles, even though we didn't hike any of the trails!

We had an early dinner, put the kids to bed, and the adults had some time to relax. We had some awesome food, courtesy of the Cragheads. Boy, when they camp, they eat like kings! We try to keep things easy and low-budget, so it was a welcome surprise to have gourmet burgers and some fat steaks!

We tried to pack everything early in the morning so we could just get up and take an early hike. No dice. P has finally hit "the terrible twos" and this continued on the following day. It was very frustrating, and I was at my wit's end. We decided to call it quits and just headed home to beautiful, foggy Morro Bay.

While the company was fantastic, P and Bode played well together, this was not my favorite camping trip. The hot weather was a bust, the long distance bathroom sucked, Aunt Mary came to town, and P's frustration issues compiled my stress and lack of R&R. We hope to go back, though, when it's cool and visit some of the caves and get up closer to the Pinnacles.