Friday August 21, 2015 Oceano, CA

The only only activity we planned today was a drive on the beach in the Pismo Dunes Recreational Vehicle State Park.   There is driving and camping allowed on the beach.  This is the only California state park that allows vehicles to drive on the beach.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalupe-Nipomo_Dunes.

We had our coffee and watched the morning news.  The Cuesta Fire has grown to 3500 acres and is now 20% contained.  In the afternoon I went out caching.  I found 8 and missed 3.

At about 6:30 we headed for the beach.  We entered the beach area from Pier St. in Oceano and drove south.  There is about a mile stretch where no off road vehicle are allowed.  Then for about 5 miles there is camping and off road vehicle use, sand rails, motorcycles and ATVs.  There are hundreds, make that thousands of people out there on every imaginable type of vehicle and campers from tents to motor homes.  There are no travel lanes and they drive where they want, from the water line up into the dunes.

There is a constant wind off the ocean and a small layer of sand near the ground is constantly on the go.  Many of the the campers have built barriers on the windward side to make it more comfortable on the lee side.  They have every thing from sand walls to plywood.  Still it seems to us there is more sand than we would ever want.  I guess that if you are into ORV riding you like sand in everything.  Different strokes for different folks.  Most of the campers have also put up yellow caution tape around their camping areas to warn off  ORV drivers.  That and prayers may hold the casualties down.

This from the internet on a more crowded day

We drove back to the area with no off road vehicles and parked facing the beach.  We took several pictures as the sun set  There was a thick marine layer, so we ever saw the sun set into the water.  There was enough smoke and dirt in the air to make a colorful sunset.  It was really hard to choose which sunset pictures to post.  The ones with the most color were taken with Gerri's Canon, the others with my iPhone.  It was surprising how differently the two camera see the same scene.

We decided to have supper at Old Juan's again.  http://www.oldjuanscantina.com/ The restaurant is on Pier St. where we entered and exited the beach.  We really enjoyed our meal the rellenos and tamales we so good.  They offer either refried beans or black charro beans.  We had the black beans, they are especially good.  We both had combination plates with a tamale and a rellano.  As a third item Gerri had taquitos and I had a beef taco.

After dinner we drove back onto the beach.  Our $5 fee was good unil 11 PM. I didn't mention before but this is one of the rare places that fires are allowed directly on the sand.  We drove about a mile north and exited the beach on Grand Street in Grover Beach.  There were probably 50 fires ranging from small campfires to raging bonfires.  Driving at night on the beach without traffic lanes was more disconcerting than in the daylight.

Back at the coach we weren't up very long.  With a sunset on the beach and a late dinner we were tired.  I think tonight had been the first time in over a month that we were out after dark.  No TV tonight, no Rummy game and the internet connection was slower than usual.  I think Gerri read for 5 minutes before the light went off. I didn't even start reading, just straight to bed.