Day 90: Pacific Ocean!
We woke up in Paso Robles and enjoyed a slow morning getting ready. Well, it was an extra long slow morning after Rob had us all up at 6:15am for a conference call. He had intended to take the call while we all kept sleeping, but you can only guess how well that went with two boys very eager to get up in the morning. I did enjoy the extra snuggle time.
We took the first half of the day calls from the campsite, which was nice to not be on the road after all the long drive days recently. Part of the reason for not driving early was that we still had no idea where we were going today. The first plan of Pinnacles National Park had to be scrapped once Rob saw there was no connectivity. With the recent wildfires and COVID closures, our options were very limited. We ended up heading to Monterey, since our planned stop the next day was Santa Cruz. Once we did hit the road Rob had a solid work day from the back of the RV while I drove and the kids did their school work.
It seems like we are hitting a planning fatigue at this point of the trip. Nearly every night we have been writing blog posts (Kelly/Rob), finding campsites (Rob) and figuring out activities for the coming days (Kelly). I really like having a plan, so I made the call on our destination today. When we arrived to our site at the Monterey Fairgrounds RV Park, I had to laugh. When we arrived, we heard the cawing sound of 100s of crows just feet away from us.
While Rob was backing up the RV, I was outside experiencing what feels like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, while also wondering how many more seconds I have before I get pooped on.
Speaking of swarming, the campground is literally right at the end of an airport runway, so we hear all sizes of planes taking off and landing. I had to laugh, since after all, I picked this place.
They were also selling Christmas trees just across the parking lot from us, so the wonderful smell of freshly cut trees was a definite highlight. Related, We also started listening to Christmas music today.
After a couple more hours of school work, the boys and I hit the beach, the first time at the Pacific Ocean on this trip. This wrapped up our ocean journey for the trip: Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and now the Pacific Ocean.
I will say it was freezing! We didn’t even go in the water. The boys played football in the sand while I watched dolphins swim by in the water behind them. I was wearing my extra thick hoodie and jeans; the boys are crazy!
Tonight we reflected on how we miss being in the eastern time zone. With our early risers, it was fun to have 3-4 hours in the morning before school starts. Now with less than two hours, we seem to need all that time just to get ready for school.