Day 117 – Warm last night, the heat didn’t even come on; must be in (or near) southern CA! 56 degrees this morning, cloudy, a little humid. We need to move on and make some longer drives now. We have reservations in Long Beach, CA (southern CA below Los Angeles) beginning January 9. Rob’s family is located north of Long Beach; the campground we reserved for two weeks is the closest one we could find to them.
245 miles
We hate to leave Casa de Fruta. It was the source of amusement for us—time to feed the cats Casa de Dinner; time for Casa de Coffee; etc., but in all fairness, it was a good place to spend a couple of nights. And the price was right with the 50% off, Passport America discount.
Casa de Fruta RV Orchard Resort, 10031 Pacheco Pass Highway, Hollister, CA 95023, (408) 842-9316, www.casadefruta.com. Check-out time is 1 p.m. This is a large campground, over 300 campsites, with full hook-ups & all the amenities. It was less than half full this time of year. We had site #69. Because there was no one close to us, we had plenty of room, but if they were full, sites would be crowded. In a lovely setting surrounded by rolling hills and fruit orchards, but by a busy road, again, if crowded, it would be noisy. But it wasn’t bad during our stay. It was a tourist trap with the various stores & offerings they were trying to sell, and if you needed something it was right there. Off-season, the rate was $48.60 per night which wasn’t bad AND we got 50% off that rate with Passport America. We would stay here again for a short “just passing through” stay.
We left the “Fruity Palace” at 10:40 a.m., filled up on propane at Casa de Propane (enough already!), and headed west on Route 152 to southwest on Route 156 to Highway 101 south. 58 degrees and cloudy. Traffic wasn’t too bad. The 101 is better than Interstate 5 as far as scenery and less trucks. It will take longer to get to southern CA on the coastal route, but we will certainly enjoy the scenery more, and it will take us through Santa Barbara & Ventura.
We stopped for gas in Buellton, home of Split Pea Anderson’s, and we stopped at a rest stop for lunch, letting the girls out to take a break. It took us 5 hours and 20 minutes to reach a place that we could settle into for the night. We don’t have reservations, nor have we scoped out campgrounds in advance for the trip down to Long Beach. We figured we’d take whatever we could find rather than drive forward to scout out a bunch of campgrounds.
The drive was interesting. The scenery changed greatly from leaving the fruit orchards to arriving at the Pacific Ocean. After reaching the Ocean, we encountered dense fog. The first place we stopped to check out campsites was Refugio State Beach in Gaviota. By this time we were feeling a little grouchy & the girls were certainly ready to settle in. We felt it was expensive for what you got (which was nothing but a muddy campsite to park in near the beach), but the independent campgrounds were twice the price. It was so foggy, we could barely find the campground, let alone see the Ocean. But we could hear the waves, and that was enough to make me happy. Grin.
Half the campground was closed. We had no trouble finding a site since there were only a few campers occupying sites, even at the start of a weekend. Most the people there were surfers. We chose site #13, no hook-ups, no water for filling up, no dump station, but we were just staying one night. It seemed relatively quiet when we were unpacking. 4 p.m. 58 degrees, dense fog. $45 per night.
We soon realized that you could rarely hear the waves breaking due to the Highway 101 traffic and the fact that very busy train tracks ran right next to the campground. The noise was really bad, keeping all of us, including the cats, awake most of the night. Okay, it was just a stopover for one night, we’ll move somewhere else tomorrow.