Dry Camping

We just spent three nights at New Brighton Beach State Park in Capitola (Santa Cruz County). What a fabulous spot. The campground has lots of trees, plenty of room and sits on a cliff overlooking Monterey Bay. We had fun exploring the beach and fossils in the cliffs at low tide.

The only problem with this place was that we couldn’t get a site with hookups. When you don’t have hookups (water, sewer and electric) that’s called dry camping. We filled up our water tank at my friend Jane’s house, and used our battery. This was our first experience of living without the amenities. Water and sewer are not an issue at all, but we ran out of electricity the first night. It seems that our propane furnace uses a lot of juice to run the fan, and it was in the 40s at night. We ran the generator to recharge the battery, but you can only do that during certain daylight hours, so we were pretty cold in the morning. We’re finding that CA State parks have limited spots with hookups for a trailer our size and that they are booked months in advance. So instead of staying at a lovely park location, we are having to stay in RV parks.

Pt Lobos, just south of Carmel was a highlight of this stop. We hiked on the bluffs and saw gray whales, dolphins, sea otters, elephant seals, harbor seals and sea lions in about two hours. The scenery was gorgeous and the water so emerald and teal. (See photos.) We also got lots of visiting in with Jane and Bob, Mary’s friends from the 70s. It was also sunny, or at least not raining for two whole days!