Montaña de Oro State Park
Camp Review
We camped at site 9, which was not a great site. The site had no bushes or trees that delineated the campsite’s boundaries, and so other campers walked through our campsite with impunity. It also meant that there was no privacy. The ground was also pockmarked with holes from the local gophers, which made the ground uneven to walk on.
If I could choose, I would have chosen a campsite on the outer edges, such as sites 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 12, etc. However, from the camp host’s opinion, sites 23+ are much louder and less desirable.
Our site had a fire ring (with grill), picnic table, and a wooden food vault. However, the food vault was missing a door, and we were unable to secure food in there. We ended up storing our food in the bed of our truck.
When we first arrived, our side was surrounded by a group that must have numbered at least 16 people and situated in sites 7, 11, and 14. When we pulled up, they were using our picnic table for storage, which they quickly cleaned up. Still, the kids from that group walked and biked through our campsite, as well as generally being loud starting at 6 a.m. Thankfully, they were gone after our first night, and the rest of our stay was generally quiet.
The toilets were vault toilets, but they were incredibly odorless! I wish whatever magic they used to suppress the sewage smell would be cast at all campgrounds using non-flush toilets.
The potable water at the campsite came from a large water tank and had a funky smell. I guess it was better than not having any water, but had I known the water wasn’t fresh, I would have brought all the water from home.
One major positive was that there were lots of animals that we could see from the campsite. There were the resident gophers, hawks, blue jays, California quail, other various birds, rabbits, deer, and one female peacock. The camp host mentioned that there is a coyote that also hangs around.
What I Learned
The campsite was relatively windless—and while I counted that as a purely positive trait—it meant that the smoke from the campfire seemed to blow in just about every direction. Because we had a campfire every morning and every night, it meant that we all smelled like smoke—even after we came back.
Friends
Harmon joined us for this trip, and it was so much fun spending time with him. We got to catch up on our lives, and we got to make a ton of memories together—of note, it was Harmon’s first time (to his best recollection) trying clam chowder, baked potatoes (!!), and jambalaya. He’s officially not yet an adult, but he sure acted like one. He was dependable for buying firewood, cooking, helping watch the girls, and did not need help with very much. I am so proud of how he’s grown up, and I can’t wait until he has more time to become a regular camping buddy.
What Happened?
Every autumn, the girls have a week off of school—Cassie and I then try to fill it with fun memories. This year, we decided to go on a longer camping trip with friends. Unfortunately, a few friends were not available, but we were able to snag one interested person, Harmon! I’ve known Harmon since he was born, and we’ve gone camping a few times, but we had not gone together in a while. But since Harmon is now taller than me, and it would be uncomfortable to take him along in our midsize truck, we borrowed Mike’s truck. And since Mike’s truck doesn’t have a camper on top of it, we would all be sleeping in tents!
We arrived in Montaña de Oro State Park after a laughter-filled drive down Highway 101. As we navigated through the campground, I was not happy at the sight that greeted us. There was a giant party of people right next to us, their tents formed a small circle around where our campsite was (and I wasn’t sure if they were encroaching on our site or if it was just a small campsite), and our picnic table had kids’ bicycles leaning against it with helmets strewn around the campsite. To their credit, as soon as we pulled up, one of the dads came by, smoothed things over, and asked the kids to move their bikes. Their kids still had some small stuff in our campsite, but those got removed one by one as we unpacked and pitched our tents. After our campsite was set up, we took a quick walk to Spooner’s Cove to explore the local beach and to people-watch. There was a sunset photography shoot of a couple happening and it caught my attention as the woman was dressed in a fancy dress and very pregnant; the man, however, was dressed in a regular T-shirt and jeans. I thought at first that the photoshoot was only for the woman, but while there were a few photos of just the woman, they took plenty of couple shots too. It was strange how underdressed the man was. After the sunset, we walked back to camp and drove to meet Steve and Mercedes for dinner. At Beerwood, we had some upscale bar food that tasted pretty darn good. Harmon had his first jambalaya of his life—the jambalaya was fine (not great; a bit too salty), but he liked it nonetheless. We thought their sliders and chicken sandwich were excellent though. After dinner, we drove back to our campsite, started a campfire, and enjoyed some sausages while chatting some more. We then all went to bed full and happy.
Unfortunately, we all woke up between 6 and 7 a.m. in the morning as the kids in the neighboring campsites woke up crying and yelling. For Harmon, it was worse as his sleeping pad deflated in the middle of the night (I offered to stop by a sports store so he could buy a replacement, but he was a trooper and said that it wasn’t necessary as his sleeping bag was thick and he couldn’t feel the ground much). It was chilly, so we started a campfire, boiled water for hot chocolate (Swiss Miss Dark Hot Chocolate is so-so-so good), and started making omelets. We warmed up, ate yummy breakfast, and we started heading north in our truck.
We arrived with 15 minutes to spare, so we ended up hanging around the visitor center. We used the telescopes in the back patio to take a look at Hearst Castle, though we found out that the digital zoom on our phones yielded sharper views of the mansion. Still, using the telescopes was fun and it gave us something to do. The 10-minute bus ride was less nauseating than expected (especially with how twisty the road was) and once we arrived, the tour guide led us through the Upstairs Suites Tour. While there were some interesting factoids, for me, the best part of the tour was looking at the celestial suite—this bedroom is definitely the one that Cassie and I would want to stay at if we could travel back in time and be invited to be a guest at this mansion. The tour ended with the bus ride down, and we were done with Hearst Castle.
We drove down a few miles south to William Randolph Hearst Memorial State Beach, where we ate made and ate sandwiches and played on this beach filled with driftwood. We spent time erecting targets with driftwood and knocking them down with large stones and other driftwood. We also walked the beach, looked for rocks that were shaped like hearts, and skipped stones on the San Simeon Creek. We then headed to Cayucos, where we snacked on clam chowder, walked the pier, dolphin-watched (Harmon had never seen dolphins before!), and walked the small downtown area.
Back at the campsite, we were relieved to see that the large camping group had left, and we enjoyed a quiet evening. We walked over to Spooner’s Cove for sunset again, and this time, saw three photoshoots happening at once. There was one wedding ceremony that turned into a photoshoot, a photoshoot with a single female model, and then a photoshoot of a group of teenagers (maybe they were in a band?). The sunset was quite pretty, and we walked back to camp. We got a fire going and cooked some hot dogs for dinner. The kids got to enjoy some card and board games, while I read and Cassie stared into the campfire. We all went to bed and would have slept better if it weren’t for loud squawking birds at 5:30 a.m. and if some of us hadn’t drank so much water the night before.
Like the day before, we woke up, got a campfire going, boiled water for hot chocolate, and made breakfast. On this day, we drove to the Cal Poly campus to see the Architecture Graveyard. We found the college campus to be delightful and the “graveyard” to be interesting. This “graveyard” was a testing ground for architecture designs that pushed the envelope for what architecture students thought was possible. And there are structures that have been around for more than 50 years! After the tour, we met up with Steve at Firestone Grill for lunch. The ribs were very tasty, and we took our happy selves to Phoenix Books—a bookstore with a collection of interesting old books. Afterwards, we explored more of the San Luis Obispo downtown area before heading back to our campsite. Unlike the previous days, the sky was fully clouded over, so we kept up a big campfire and had ourselves some loaded baked potatoes.
On the last morning, we repeated our morning ritual of campfire, hot chocolate, and breakfast. We packed up all our gear, made sure we left the campsite as we found it, and headed back home.
