We stayed the night at San Fransisco in an RV park that was more like a hotel where you bring your own room. It even had a pool table and a lobby. As usual, that morning mom and dad woke up before any of us and took off to get a good head start on the day. Luckily they woke us all up to see the Golden Gate bridge.
From there we drove to the coast. The plan was to spend a nice day by the beach so Steven could swim (something he's been begging to do at almost every body of water we pass), the girls can lay out and read, dad could fish, and Ryan could build something with all the drift wood around. Unfortunately, instead of sun, water, and sand, we were met with fog, fog, and a really cold dense fog. Apparently thick fog is normal for this area and we had no chance of the sunny Gulf Shores like day we were hoping for. We did make one stop in the morning to eat breakfast and went out to the beach only to walk back to the warm relief within our camper.
No worries about the cold, we could still look forward to the coastal drive along Route 1. The views were nice from this road, but, once again were slightly ruined by the fog. And, the road was much, much curvier than we expected and most of us became quite car sick.
Driving down the road we came upon plenty of tiny, quaint little coastal villages, which had such charm. The main produce/business for these towns was oysters. We soon spotted a place full of cars and people and decided to pull over and see whats up. (It was a good time to stop as we were all very sick.) It was an oyster fair. People came to this place, bought a bag of live oysters, grilled and ate them there at the many picnic tables set around. It was like a big community picnic. Of course we had to buy a bag to try them, but we didn't eat them there as there was no room.
Traveling further down we decided to stop and have a picnic on the beach. We found a lovely place with a grill and picnic table. It was still very cold out so Dad lit a warm fire on the grill, which we later used to cook up some nice big hamburgers and the oysters. On this trip I have learned something about myself, I love picnics. Spreading out a tablecloth over the wooden picnic table, setting it up with great food like fresh tomatoes, red onion, lettuce, chips, etc., and eating outside with views of God's great earth is among one of my favorite things to do for sure.
With lunch finished, we once again piled in the old motorhome and drove onward. Steven was quite upset with the fact that he still hasn't had the chance to swim, so we made a deal with him: if the sun comes out and we find a beach where RVs are allowed to park (a rare occasion) we will stop. Sure enough, it wasn't too much longer when the fog finally did clear just enough for the sun to make an appearance. Unfortunatly for Steven, the beach we stopped at was simply too dangerous to swim at due to rip tides and giant waves. None of us even dared to test whether the sign warning us not to swim was right or wrong, for just looking at the spectacular waves was enough to scare anyone. They towered high and came crashing down with enormous force. It was quite a show to watch. As we were enjoying the beach, Mom looked out and saw a spray of water shoot up. She began to wonder out loud if it was a whale or something. I didn't believe her until she began shrieking excitedly, "It is a whale!" Now everyone on the beach was facing that direction, and sure enough. After seeing another spray go up into the air we could see a very large and shiny black form break the surface. The whale hung around for quite some time before finally leaving.
That night we found a nice little State park near the beach. It was really barren with hardly any trees, but had some charm to it. We made a super nice campfire and stayed up late chatting and singing. It was a good day.
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