We have officially been on our trip for close to a month now, and last night was the first night that we actually slept in our truck. We have been visiting friends and family along the west coast and enjoying their hospitality, so last night we finally got to test out the diggs. Let me say that we had a great lesson in how unprepared the truck (and we) are for camping. Not necessarily provision and equipment wise, we just need to do some major reorganizing.

We left my grandma’s house in Paso Robles yesterday and headed down highway 1 along the coast. We decided that since it was a Friday in the middle of summer our best (and cheapest) chance of finding a camp site was to head into Los Padres NF and find a dirt road we could pull off. Well, of course we drove around in the middle of nowhere until well after dark  and there wasn’t a single camp site to be found (paid or free).  All of the forest service roads were closed, damn budget cuts!!  We finally found a hidden little dirt road that went a little ways off the highway so we drove down, parked and decided it was a good enough place for the night.  After much shuffling stuff around, we pulled out the roof top tent, crawled in and passed out.  We had been asleep little more than an hour when around 1 a.m.  a party of hunters 4 trucks deep showed up.  Let’s just say it was a little nerve wrecking when a pickup truck with two guys dressed in full camo and toting guns pulled in when we were fast asleep.  They started setting up camp maybe 4 feet away from us acting like we were not even there.  By 2 a.m. four vehicles and 8 or 9 hunters had showed up at our “secret” little camping spot.

After shattering our nerves by just showing up and joining us in our little spot, they continued to frazzle us when they all got up at 4 in the morning, pulled out their guns and started talking about killing (this of course were the only pieces of the conversation we picked up).  In the end they all took off to go kill things other than ourselves.  We got up after a not so restful night of sleep at 7 a.m. and used our kitchen for the first time!  In the light of day, it turned out we had found quite a beautiful place to park for the night and I have to say, Luis did a pretty fine job on our kitchen drawer set up.  As for the camping set up, we have plenty of time to work out the kinks.

… p.s. we need to quit watching TV murder mysteries and if you have not seen Deliverance, DON’T!

August 15th, 2009 | Category: North America, United States | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL