Buses, Beaches, and Bovines

I live in San Francisco in what is known as the "fog belt". The fog will stay here and won't burn off when the rest of the bay area is sunny and gorgeous. Though I miss the sun, I still enjoy the sound of distant fog horns, and when it is painfully hot elsewhere, the weather is perfect in my neighborhood.

This summer has been particularly hot in the valley, so it wasn't a surprise when some of my favorite camping people suggested that they camp "on the coast" in the fog belt.

About an hour north of SF, along highway one, there are lots of surf towns without the surf. You CAN surf there, but the water is a little cold for anything less than 6mm neoprene body suits. It's excellent for abalone diving, it's not so good for wave riding.

We arrived Friday afternoon, and circled the wagons.

The big red tent went up in about 30 minutes - I'm getting better at putting that thing up - and we began the infamous 2am chili making. Click here for the recipe, click on the picture to make it large enough to read. Yeah, smells like touchdowns.

It got a little windy, we were prepared.

 Lawsons Landing is an odd little town(is it a town?), there are a number of vintage trailer homes that are lived in year round.

The people of the landing have a design aesthetic that I'll call "abalone shell chic".

Occasionally seals hang out to bask in the sun. Sometimes they like a little shelter.

The campsite is popular among the "big RV" crowd. Perhaps I'm unclear on the concept, but I don't see the point of taking it all with you when you are trying to get away from it all. Regardless, here is a picture that shows the scale between us and them. We never did figure out why the large RV wanted to park so close to us, but since he shared abalone with us, I'm not complaining.

These corn muffins were baked in an old coleman stove. The stoves fold and sit on top of the old style two burner stoves, they can get to about 400 degrees and apparently, they can bake some sweet stuff. Baked by SailorKH who has some mad camping skills.

Coleman also makes a foldable camp fire ring.

You could buy a very strange blanket/rug/covering if you wanted.

Some like the the tops down, I'm occasionally a fan of the tops being up.

I think the coast guard has a sense of humor.

 

And of course I took a panoramic photo.