THE RAVAGES OF FIRE.
Day 120 – Beginning of Week 18. This morning it was 59 and raining lightly at 8 a.m. We’re above Santa Barbara, but today we’ll be travelling south along the coast, taking Highway 101 through Ventura. I imagine we’ll be passing burned out areas from the recent terrible Thomas fire. In fact, inland it’s still burning & will be for about another 2 weeks – at least that’s what we got from the latest local fire report online. It’s under control though, about 92% contained. It’s supposed to rain hard later today, but we’ll see if that really happens. Heavy rain would be excellent for putting out the fires, but it’d be bad for mudslides. Should be an interesting trip to the next campground.
52 miles
Ocean Mesa Campground & RV Park, 100 El Capitan Terrace Lane, Santa Barbara, CA 93117, (805) 879-5751 or (866) 410-5783, www.oceanmesa.com. Check-in 2 p.m.; check-out noon. Located 20 miles above Santa Barbara, in the hills across Highway 101 from the Pacific Ocean and El Capitan State Beach, this campground is in an ideal location away from the hustle & bustle of Santa Barbara & its surrounding communities, and a half hour drive to the Danish touristy city of Solvang. Very nicely landscaped, well cared for & spotlessly clean, when you first drive in thru the gate there are 24 tent camping sites on the left, all separated with palm trees & lovely plants. On the right is a very large fenced-in play area with lots of stuff for the kids. There is a fenced dog run. There are trails on both sides of the Park which go down to El Capitan. You continue driving up the hill & you get to the camp store & all the facilities. Beyond that is the RV part of the campground; there are 80 RV sites. The campsites are terraced on the hill & paved. Full hook-ups + all the amenities. The sites are large, plenty of room between sites, palm trees throughout. We chose site #889 at the end of a row, thick bushes on one side of us, no one parked close to us. They are expensive, $95 per night off-season. We got 10% off that with Good Sam Club. Very nice Park; we would stay here again.
We departed at noon, 61 degrees, cloudy. By the time we reached Santa Barbara, it was raining. Just past Santa Barbara & Montecito (both lovely but busy cities with big homes terraced up the hills behind them), evidence of the Thomas fire began showing up on the hills. SO close to these quite-populated cities! It was raining pretty hard, so it was difficult to get pictures that could show the damage the way it really looked. First, spots of burned out areas, then whole hills. Then the fires jumped Highway 101 and went down to the Ocean. This was beyond the more heavily-populated places, and it was obvious how hard the firefighters fought to keep it under control here so that it didn’t spread further north into the cities. Note to Time Magazine: Person of the Century should be the Firefighters everywhere!
On the Ocean side of 101 where the fire crossed over the highway, it was shocking to see the blackened vegetation, brush, palm trees, and several buildings (damaged so badly we couldn’t tell if they had been homes, gas stations, restaurants, or park facilities). There are many County & State Parks & Beaches along this part of the 101. Normally they are full. Everything was just about empty. And the smoke – we started smelling the remnants of the smoke in Santa Barbara. It smelled like dirty ashtrays all the way down to, and including, our campground where we spent the night in Ventura. Or like if you’ve burned something in the oven the night before & then the whole house has that old burned smell? No ocean clean air here.
We arrived at Ventura Beach RV Resort at 1 p.m., 62 degrees, rain, and enough wind gusts that it was starting to feel a bit much for the RV. Near the City of Ventura, this Park is near the Ocean east of Highway 101. We picked it because it was before the 101 turns inland & heads east – a great stopover place before our drive thru Los Angeles to Long Beach tomorrow. We were assigned site #55, full hook-ups. We were glad to get out of the weather and settle in.
It rained on & off and was windy the rest of the night. Not the continual torrential downpours we’ve seen in the northeast and south, but still plenty of rain for help with the Thomas fire. It’s supposed to continue raining on & off through tomorrow. Southern CA needs it; this is good!
Hope you are safe
Saw the mudslides on TV!!! I hope you are not in danger. Please let us know, Diane and Ted
Thank you for the concern, we are fine. We just squeaked by, camping about 15 miles south of the slides. We drove through the slide area just a little over 12 hours earlier!