Thursday, July 12: San Mateo campground, San Onofre

[Tynor] Today we went to San Onofre state park to stay 3 nights. Our directions told us to go to the left and it took us into a military base that had a campground in it. The person that checks people in told us (with a slightly nasal tone) “this is not a state park, this is a military base,” it made us laugh sooo hard. He told us to go across the freeway but it was not the right state park. The person there told us to go one exit NORTH. But when we got out of there, mom went SOUTH! It took us several miles to find another exit so that we could turn around.

[Stacia] Leaving El Capitan in the morning, we were nearly out of ice for our cooler and I hoped to pick up other groceries that we didn’t find at the health food market the day before. So after an hour or two of driving, with the kids clamoring for lunch again (what is it with these children always wanting to eat on schedule? :-), I was once again scanning exit signs, hoping for a sign that there was a grocery store nearby. This time we were in Santa Barbara. I got off at a random downtown exit – big mistake! There are no grocery stores downtown – duh. The kids lobbied for swinging into a gas station and hitting the minimart. But even the gas stations downtown are tiny and it’s hard to just “swing into” them and park, without hogging the pump island. Besides, I figured people must buy real food *somewhere*, right? Clearly not where we were, though! We wandered around for 10-15 minutes, on the lookout, and finally as we headed into a more residential area, I saw “Food Center.” Bingo! There was even a place to park, more or less. So we were semi-blocking a big dumpster – I decided I’d risk it for a quick run into the store.

The Food Center turned out to be a Hispanic grocery stores (we’re getting quite the tour of various grocery stores!), so once again, our beloved cracker favorites were nowhere to be found. But I got some fruit, drinks, the all-important ice and few other necessities so it fulfilled the need of the moment. Crackers would have to wait for yet another stop somewhere. And lunch ended up being MacDonald’s again, not much further down the road.

With kids fed and cooler chilled, we were on our way again to our south-most campground – and Legoland! But first, we had to brave the horrendous and unbelievably bad traffic in which the entire LA valley is mired. Can I just say how glad I am that I don’t have to drive on those freeways every day? It was a *mess*. We crawled for miles and miles, from 101, onto 405, and then after what seemed like forever, we made it to I-5. I didn’t realize how close the 405/I-5 intersection was to San Onofre, or we might have just pushed on through. But the kids were complete toast by then, and we needed gas and a bathroom break. So we got off at the first exit after hitting I-5, filled up at a gas station and used the bathrooms, and then pulled into the parking lot of a nearby mall. Let’s go find a park, the kids demanded! Um, no. We’re going to stretch our legs, right here on the hot blacktop, deal with the less-than-ideal “rest stop,” and get to our campground before dark. Mom’s orders!

I’m glad we didn’t spend any more time looking for a better break spot there, because when we got back on the freeway, I realized we were not far at all from San Onofre. The LA sprawl continues practically down to San Diego - ! Not quite, but close.

So Tynor described our little adventure with finding the campground – nearly another hour of toodling around to the wrong places before we *finally* got to the “right” state campground. It was an odd feeling to get off the freeway, turn left, following our directions, and see in front of us a military checkpoint. Uh…what?? Turns out our directions were to “San Onofre,” not “San Mateo State Campground at San Onofre.” BIG difference!! San Onofre appears to be virtually the same as Camp Pendleton – a huge military base! I had no clue.

The nice but puzzled soldier at the gate could see that we were going camping, but didn’t understand why we weren’t meeting someone at the campground (which would make sense, because you can’t camp at their beach unless you have military connections). Still he just asked for my ID and my car registration, then waved us through. We followed his directions winding down to the State Beach, parked, and then found out we were in completely the wrong place. The ranger-equivalent who tried to find our reservations was understanding but seemed a little surprised that we didn’t realize this couldn’t possibly be a state campground! Hey, we were just following our (wrong) directions, what do we know? Of course, afterwards, it was all very clear!

We were directed to the “State Park” campground, back up the winding road to the freeway overpass, then down south along the freeway quite a ways to the campground entrance. Waited through a line of 3-4 cars........only to find out that no, this wasn’t our campground either! Did we intend to be at the San Mateo campground instead? Oh, yeah – now it’s starting to ring a bell. Too many campgrounds in too many places to keep them all straight, I guess. For my tired and slightly befuddled brain, anyway. I reminded the boys that this was part of the “adventure.” I don’t think they were completely buying it at that point. Then, tired as I was, I somehow heard “next exit down the freeway” and thought that meant to go SOUTH, when the ranger clearly (in retrospect, and as Tynor could testify) said “North.” So we drove and drove south on I-5, looking for another exit so we could turn around. Wouldn’t you know it was miles before the next offramp! But eventually we got to the right exit, drove a mile or two East, and found our campground. Whew.

We were treated to beautiful sunsets in the San Diego area, including this lovely colored cloud design our first night at the campground.

Along the road toward the campground, we could see a bunch of boots hanging from a telephone wire – just as Tynor had heard about at school, when the military dad came to talk to his class. The dad explained that boot camp graduates often throw their boots up on the wires in celebration of surviving boot camp. It was funny to see the boots up there, just as the guy had described. We used those boots-on-the-wire to entice Cory to stay awake on the way home from Legoland the next two days, too. “Hey Cory, don’t you want to see the boots on the wire? They’re coming up in just a minute! There they are!” Ah, the ploys we’ll use to keep a little one from napping when it’s nearly bedtime. As long as they work! ;-)

[Edited to add photos 8/11/07]