Earlier this year I took advantage of the 4-day President’s day weekend to go camping. Normally, President’s day would be a 3-day weekend, but Clark County School District had a Staff Development day the Tuesday after President’s day. With this in mind I started to itch to do something with Lexi rather than hang around the house. At the last minute, mere days before our first night, I made reservations at Sunset Beach State Park, near Watsonville, CA, for a 2-day/3-night stay at the campground.
We traveled all day Saturday from Las Vegas to Watsonville, CA. The plan was to stay a few nights, go see some sights, and then head home. This was also a precursor to a much larger camping trip I had been considering for Spring Break. I decided that we would do a few things that I was worried we wouldn’t have time for, or wouldn’t be open, when we came through the last week of March.
Day one was our “North” day. I’m only going to cover day one here now, and will post up details of day two later. The original plan was to go north to San Francisco, visit Fort Point and Muir Woods. We were successful in one of the two.
We woke on Sunday morning to low clouds and fog encompassing the campground. It was nice to have a change of weather rom bright and sunny in Las Vegas. I fired up my single burner stove, boiled some water, and we enjoyed our balanced breakfast of instant oatmeal and hot chocolate. It was nice to sit back, relax, and enjoy a quiet breakfast with the kiddo and not worry about rushing her off to school.
After breakfast we jumped in the car and started for San Francisco. Now most normal and sane individuals would have drove east to catch US-101 and head due north to get into the freeway system that way. I’m neither normal nor sane. I chose to go the long and scenic route, straight north up CA-1. Heading out of camp I knew that this route was going to take significantly longer, but I was ok with that. I wanted to experience the drive and the scenery. I wanted Lexi to experience it as well. It didn’t disappoint.
As we left Watsonville and started north in no time the low clouds and fog started to burn off. Before long we were in bright sunny skies. This was a welcome sight considering our final destination. Along the way I stopped a few places. Most were to take pictures, but I did stop at a beach to let Lexi go stretch her legs. Along the way she also got to see some sea lions as they were sunning themselves on the beach.
The main goal of going to San Francisco was to go to Fort Point. Fort Point is only open during the weekends, and we would be coming through in the middle of the week during Spring Break so we would miss it. We parked off Lincoln Boulevard in the Presidio and walked on down to the Fort. We did a good walk through much of the fort. We started on the ground floor and explored until we reached the top. Lexi really enjoyed the sight of all the cannons and the view of the city.
After we finished at Fort Point, I continued north on CA-1 to Muir Woods. Sadly when we arrived the place was jam packed! I drove past the main entrance, past the auxiliary parking lot, and on down the road trying to find a parking spot. By the time I found a suitable place to park it would have been a 5 mile hike back to the entrance! I begrudgingly reported to Lexi that Muir Woods was a bust and that I would make it up to her later. She was bummed but totally understood. I am happy to report that I did make it up to her during Spring Break, but that story is for another day.
Stay tuned for the second part of this report on our President’s day 4-day weekend.
You must be logged in to post a comment.