Summer Vacation Day 1

Last Monday, my husband and I packed up the car and headed north for a week-long adventure up the coast of California. Our first leg of the trip was three days and nights of camping in Big Sur. We had reservations in Pfeiffer State Park for the second two nights, but the first night we had to try our luck at a first come first serve campground near the ocean. My husband wanted to try Kirk Creek first and we struck gold!

This was the view from our campsite when we arrived. Beautiful, no? There was a pretty heavy marine layer, but we were glad to be out of the heat of the valley where we live so we embraced the clouds.

Next was lunch and yes, I'm eating spaghetti O's. It has become a bit of a camping tradition for us to bring a can of these and eat them for lunch one day. They are super gross and I usually can't take more than a couple of bites, but I was happy to have an empty aluminum can early in the trip (you'll see why in a bit).

During lunch we made friends with some of the locals.

I think maybe we were missing our dogs (who were down at my husband's parents' ranch) because we couldn't get enough of watching the squirrels eat the almonds we'd toss to them. They were so cute!

Next was a little hike down to the water. There were beautiful wild flowers...

A babbling brook...

Licorice that my husband made me chew so I could taste the familiar flavor...

And poison oak! Oh my!

Eventually we made it to the ocean and hung out on the rocks for a bit until I got scared that the tide would wash us away.

On the way out, my husband pretended to be the guy from 127 Hours.

I collected some flowers and when we got back to our campsite...

I used the can as a vase and voila! Pretty camping flower arrangement for our picnic table! To be fair, I borrowed this idea from a neighboring campsite so I can't take all the credit, but I will make this part of our camping tradition from now on.

After our walk, I took a little nap.

Now, my husband decided to count up all the naps I took in the first day and came up with about 8. This includes the car ride on the way up, though, and he would consider it a new nap if I woke up for a minute and fell back asleep. To defend myself, I couldn't fall sleep the night before and we left the house at 6:00am that morning so I was just a wee bit tired. Plus, I was on vacation! Give me a break, right?

When I woke up, this is what I saw when I opened the tent door:

Gorgeous!

When I realized we had brought two air mattresses with us, I decided to set up a bed outside of the tent so we could read nap in the sun feeling the ocean breezes.

After some more naps, the sun started setting and we had to make a fire to keep warm and cook dinner.

While we tend to cheap out on lunches for camping, we like to splurge on our dinners.

The first night we shared a filet with salmon, brussels sprouts, red potatoes and Hitching Post Pinot. It was so delicious.

We had s'mores that night, but I didn't get a picture. Don't worry, I took photos of our process the next night and they were finger licking good.

That concludes the first day of our vacation! Tomorrow, more naps, a new restaurant with the best views, and we head into the woods!

Do you like to go camping or are you more of an indoors person?