Day 17

Day seventeen, July 25, 2011

Well ladies and gentlemen here it is, the story of our first night camping!  Today's destination was the Red Wood Forest in northern California.  We had hopes in camping at the Gold Bluff Beach Campsite, however, it was a first come first serve basis.  So in order to be sure that we would be getting a prime spot, once again we got up bright and early and began our travel north.   

Today's trip was about 6 hours long.  We drove up the northern coast of California through heavily forested areas lined with giant redwood trees. These trees were unlike any we have seen before, some of the trunks were as big as our little Cobalt we are driving cross country. After driving through some very unique towns we finally reached our destination. Fingers crossed in hopes there was still a campsite left for us, we made a left down the dirt road en route for the welcome center. The road was winding around giant trees and Jeff was doing his best to avoid and gaping potholes along the way. Luckily we reached the park ranger station in time for him to inform us there were still some sites available. He told us to continue down the road until we reached the campsite and choose any one we wanted. As we drove the final couple miles through the winding trees the forest began to open up and we spotted the shore.  We made our way down to the campground and quickly realized we may be the least prepared campers here. As we searched for a campsite we noticed others had large tents with grills and bags of food and all we had were pretzels and potato chips, looks like we were either going to being eating chips for dinner or bartering with our new neighbors.  The campsite was shaped like a circle and had 26 campsites around its perimeter.  Each campsite consisted of a picnic bench, a fire pit, and room for a tent.  Since we were so unprepared we realized that we only needed to use one out of these three amenities - the area for the tent.  We had no food to eat at the table and nothing to burn for a fire.

After pitching the tent, that we were assured was a two person tent (it would fit 2 midgets not 2 grown adults) we decided to go for a walk on the beach.  The Pacific Ocean was freezing cold but the beach was covered in cool, silky, smooth,  black sand perfect for walking on.  We spotted something out in the water but it was hard to tell what it might be.  Every once in a while we would see a small black head pop up between the white caps.  We continued walking down the beach and then spotted a dead seal washed up onto the shore :(.  So we concluded that is what we may have seen out in the distance. We made our way back to the campsite and decided Sun Chips and Cheetos just would not cut it for both lunch and dinner so we got into the car and began to head 10 miles back into town to get some food. 

Once in town we again had two options, an old run down store that was simply called "Restaurant" or another called "Snack Shack."  We went with Snack Shack and were pleasantly surprised, the food was rather good. While waiting for our food we sat near two locals and began to wonder why any one would want to live in this one horse town. There is nothing for 15 miles in each direction.  We wrapped up our food and jetted back to the car.  The next mission - firewood.  Like we mentioned earlier there was nothing in this run down town for miles so of course we showed up the ranger station empty handed.  Luckily, the ranger station was prepared for rookie campers like ourselves and we bought a bundle of wood from him.  We continued down this narrow dirt path all the way back to our site.  Thank god for the bubble on the top of the Cobalt because that made us appear a little more legit.  Our brown paper bags filled with a chicken sandwich, a cheeseburger, grilled cheese, and French fries from Snack Shack certainly did not! 

After arriving back at our site Jen decided to take a nap in the tent and I decided to go for a little hike. Camera in hand and I was off. The trail I trekked on was called Fern Canyon Trail, named because the trail runs along a stream at the bottom of a 40 foot canyon whose walls are lined with five finger ferns. The trail was very scenic and as I arrived back to the tent Jen was passed out. So instead of waking her I decided to grab a beach towel and go take a nap on the beach. After taking an hour and a half nap on the beach I was awoken by and alarmed Jennifer who thought I was lost LoLzz. 

It was now time to start a fire, luckily I grabbed a match book at the big Texas steak ranch aka 72 ounces of hell. It took a few attempts but we finally got the fire burning. While sitting around the fire off in the distance we hear a faint noise. As we listen closer we hear the sweet sound of a violin playing at the other side of the campground. Could we be so lucky to be in the presence of Olivia McPeak a second time?!?!?!?! Unfortunately not, it is just an amateur striving to be the next Olivia, good luck to him! No on can replace a great such as Olivia. 

Our night concluded a little earlier than expected because our fire burned out. At first this was not too bad because some of our neighbors (again so much more prepared than us) had there sites lit up with lanterns and spot lights.  Suddenly around 10pm, everyone's lights went out and it was impossible to see anything even inches away.  We decided it was time to finish up Words with Friends and head to bed.

The tent really was not that bad at all.  It actually looks much smaller from the outside.  However, once again we (more so me) were reminded just how unprepared we were.  The temperature "dipped down to about 55 degrees" (according to Rob, if you ask me I think it may have "dipped down" to 40).  We had a beach quilt and an old comforter to lay on and then two small throw blankets to drape over us.  Needless to say I have never been so cold in my life.  I could not stop shivering and shaking.  At one point I was laying directly on the bottom part of the tent because I crawled under every layer possible.  Good thing this time we are only camping one night.  Number one priority before our next camping adventure is to find a Walmart so that we will be better prepared! Peace, love, and happiness, the Nomads.