Camping in San Mateo, surfing at San O'

Our jaunt through Las Vegas set us off course for San Diego. Not wanting to drive quite that far south just to drive up again, I picked a surf spot I always wanted to paddle out at but never got the chance, San O, and made that our destination.


It doesn't look like much, June gloom is a real thing in California, but I had a pretty fun surf here.


Freddie's leash is secured under one of those rocks. That was enough to keep him in one place. He was welcomed to the California coast, though, by being attacked by a guy's small, recently acquired rescue dog. Freddie was pretty bummed and spent the rest of our stay on this beach in the van.


There are a handful of campgrounds in the area and we found an open slot in San Mateo. While this is not the first time we parked at a campground, it would mark the first time in the trip that we started our own campfire.


As foreign to us as the gambling and sexual debauchery of Las Vegas is the casual camper's lifestyle. We've gotten pretty good at stealthily parking in dark areas of parking lots and confidently walking to the back of restaurants to use their restroom without purchasing a crumb of food, but sleeping in the dirt and sharing a coin operated shower with hundreds of RVing Americans is just not our cup of tea. On this particular night, however, we got the urge to at least mildly participate. So we bought a log bundle from the campground toll booth, picked up the classic hot dog and s'more ingredients and set about lighting some shit on fire.



I had done laundry at the Ace before we left but I don't like putting my white tees in the dryer. This is what a crazy person's clothesline might look like.


We accidentally and very stupidly left our food out overnight. The forest critters ate all of our chocolate and some Doritos. This giant bird came back for breakfast.

We checked the surf again in the morning. I decided to pass and we started driving north to LA.