WE FELT THE EARTH MOVE!
Day 118 – After a restless night with trains & traffic running right by the Park, lights flashing & horns honking in the bedroom windows, we got up to dense fog again, 58 degrees. We decided to move to an independent campground close to this one. We’re 20 miles above Santa Barbara, and surprisingly there are very few campgrounds in the area until around Ventura. The state beaches & state parks are either closed for the season, don’t take RV’s, or like this one, right by Highway 101.
6 miles
Refugio State Beach, 35 Refugio Beach Rd, Goleta, CA 93117, (800) 444-7275, https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=603. Check-out time is noon. A smallish campground right by the beach and Pacific Ocean with two loops containing a total of 67 RV sites and tent sites. Twenty-seven campsites were open & only 5 of those sites were occupied. Right by the campground, between busy Highway 101 and the Park, there are two sets of train tracks. VERY noisy. No hook-ups, no water, no dump station. The sites were big enough & there was plenty of room for the slide-outs. Off-season rates were high for what they offered – $45 per night. In a pinch we’d stay here again, but only if there was nothing else available, and hopefully for not more than one night.
We packed up & left at 11:25 a.m., arriving at Ocean Mesa RV Park & Campground at 11:40, 61 degrees & very foggy. The campground personnel let us drive through the Park & pick the campsite we wanted. We chose site #889, checked in and unpacked. This is a nice campground, large & nicely landscaped. It’s across from El Capitan State Beach, on the hill away from Highway 101 and the train tracks. It’s a non-smoking campground; we like that. You can see the Ocean from one side of our RV (except it’s foggy most of the time). Full hook-ups, all the amenities. The further south we go, the more expensive it’s been. This one is $95 per night, $85.50 per night with the Good Sam Club discount.
Ocean Mesa Campground, Santa Barbara, CA
Ocean Mesa Campground, Santa Barbara, CA
Site 889, Ocean Mesa Campground, Santa Barbara, CA
After lunch & a little relaxation, we drove into Solvang to the closest health food store we could find. The last time we were in Solvang was about 35 years ago – then it was a little Dutch town with cute little stores. The main street is still there, of course, cute as ever; we were amazed at the sprawl of homes that’s grown up all around Solvang. By the time we got back to the RV, the fog had finally lifted. Gorgeous day out, 69 degrees.
5:30 p.m. We just experienced our first earthquake since we’ve been in CA. There have been several in San Jose & the Bay area in the last couple of weeks, but we didn’t feel those. We certainly felt this one. Oh, yes, memories of earthquakes. This is one of the reasons we left CA. And no, we are sure this wasn’t because of the wine & beer we were drinking at the time……
3.8 magnitude earthquake , 5 miles from our campground, Ocean Mesa Campground, Santa Barbara, CA
Looked it up on Google, 3.8 magnitude centered in the Ocean 5 miles from the coast, very close to us, about as close as you can get. We lived in southern CA many, many years and never were we this close to the epicenter. There are usually aftershocks, oh goody.
To those from back east: 3.8 is NOT that big in the scheme of things. We were just freaked out, that’s all…….it felt like someone hit the RV, boom, then a swaying from side-to-side. Okay, let’s hope this is the last one we feel while we’re here. Scared the kitties, too.