Wake Up, Smell the Coffee

We did wake up and smell the coffee today.  It just wasn’t at El Capitan Beach State Park.  You see the State Park charges $9 to get in (we hesitated to pay that for a ten minute stroll on the beach with our own coffee.)  We got there 15-minutes before the park opened so a huge metal gate blocked the easiest way to park near the water.

The older lady who worked the guard shack reluctantly allowed us to do a “drive-through” for 5 minutes through the camping section for a glimpse of the water.  We did see a lot of almost awake, happy campers sitting around picnic tables with their hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, but not much water nor beach.  We saw a couple of cute dogs too. 

My vision of walking on grayish sand dodging cold Pacific water creeping up toward my toes quickly evaporated.  We made the guard shack lady happy I suppose-if she noticed when we cruised back by her while leaving the park.

Then we were back to the RV and starting up the coast toward the end point of Oceano, CA and Pacific Dunes RV Park.  We’ll stay here for three nights after making two inspections along the way.  The dunes are too wide to reach the ocean (at least for our old bodies.)  But they are a delight in and of themselves.  I hope in this harried schedule of work we are keeping, to at least walk out into the dunes once.  Maybe with that cup of coffee early some morning…