Butano State Park has been one of my family's favorite close-by camping places for a while. We have gone almost every summer, and have been known to head up for a fall camping weekend away as well. The park is right next to the small town of Pescadero, along the coast and between Santa Cruz and Pacifica. So, there are lots of beautiful beaches just a short drive away in either direction. My friend came to visit from England in the last couple weeks of summer so I thought I should take her to our traditional camping spot.
Pescadero scenes
We started off the trip with some boogie boarding at Pacifica State beach, another favorite hang out place for my family. The waves were awesome, the weather was perfect, and overall it was the ideal session, especially for a first timer. We even got to see a whale (I think it was a gray whale). The last time I came to this beach with my mom and some friends, there were a few whales trolling the area just outside the beach, extremely close to the surfers waiting for the next wave. The whales were swimming back and forth, occasionally coming up for air and sending sprays of water puffing upwards, and often jumping halfway out of the ocean, huge mouths gaping, presumably to catch fish. We could track the whales' progress by watching the crowd of birds following the whales for scraps. I told my friend about the whales before we got to the beach, not expecting to see them again, but then there they were!
The whale (or should I say, the tip of the whale's mouth...)
After spending a few hours at the beach, we drove on down the coast to our campground. We did have to stop for some Pescadero artichoke bread first - it's the best artichoke bread anywhere! We have been multiple times to buy a loaf and every time, not matter what time it is, the bread is always fresh baked and steaming.
By the time we had the bread, it was about 5pm. We drove the short distance to the campground (20 minutes according the GPS) and, 40 minutes later, were still driving down a long and winding path into the forest. Yep, you guessed it - wrong turn. Actually, I had missed the turn into the campground and accidentally followed a sign to a forest camp instead. We turned around, drove all the way back, and finally made it to camp around 6pm. We bought firewood, found our camp spot, and realized that we had made a rookie mistake. We had, somehow, neglected to bring any source of light. No flashlight, no headlamp, no lantern...and it would be dark in an hour and a half. We scrambled to set up camp, start dinner, light the fire...do all the things we needed light to do, and then resigned ourselves to a (very) early bedtime. We did have a kindle though, and played cards by the very dim light of the kindle until our dying fire smoked us away from the table and into the tent.
Our home sweet home (for two nights).
I did eventually find an emergency flashlight we had stashed in the car, and after that everything worked out just fine. We spent the second day cruising around Santa Cruz and checking out the boardwalk and nearby beaches, then returned to our camp for another cozy night in the tent. The next morning, our last morning, I woke up thinking we must have slept really late because the campground was loud with the sound of all the campers bustling around, but when I checked the time it was only 8am. Hmmmm. I though it was strange but didn't think too much more about it. Then, as I was coming back from the bathroom, my friend ran up to me and said, "Um. We may have a problem." "What is it?" "Well, the ranger just came by and said we have to be out of here within half an hour or we'll be stuck here until 2pm as they're closing the road for roadwork." Oh. We do indeed have a problem. I think we did the fastest camp take-down ever and were out of there in 20 minutes. We drove back to Pescadero and had lattes and strawberries for breakfast (and some leftover artichoke bread) and then cruised back towards home. We made a stop in Half Moon Bay to walk around the town and stop by our favorite cafe, Moonside Bakery, and then returned home.
Two days of salt water and no washing makes for pretty stiff hair.