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Tucker’s Grove Park

Pinnacles National Park (With Fun Stops)

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Pinnacles National Park
March 6th – March 14, 2021

Although Pinnacles National Park is one of the newer national parks (established in 2013), it was actually declared a national monument in 1908 by President Roosevelt.  It’s not as famous as and much easier to get reservations at than the most popular national parks, but offers some very compelling reasons to visit.  Located in Central California, this adventure is an easy reach from San Diego and allowed us some additional fun stops along the way.  Our stops included Santa Barbara, Pinnacles National Park, Pfieffer Big Sur State Park, Oceano Campground (Pismo Beach), and a final stop in Santa Barbara on the way home. We search for openings at national and state parks because the sites are often spread out and tend to be economical.  When planning our stay overs, we also consider our needs for dumping, water replenishment, and electricity demand.  We generally need to dump every few days, but can usually find dump stations at gas stations if they are not available at campsites (which they often are in at least a centralized dump station at the campground).  On this trip we were able to test my new portable grey water holding tank solution (stay tuned for a future article!) to double our dry camping days (from 3 up to 6 days) and did not have to use a gas station dumping area.

Coming from San Diego, both Central and Northern California are a bit too long of a drive for a nonstop trip.  Since we like to follow our 4-hour rule (driving no more than this amount of time), we generally plan a stop in Santa Barbara when heading to these northern locations.  Santa Barbara is about a 3 ½ hour drive from our home and my cousin Jon lets us stay in his driveway (and hookup to water and electricity).  On this trip we stayed on a Saturday night (both on the way up and on the way back) and were treated to two fabulous BBQ fish dinners (grilled Salmon and guacamole and chips) with all my cousins.  We also had time to explore the area of the Old Mission Santa Barbara and do some hiking in Tuckers Grove Park.  It’s always great to be able to combine a Scamp adventure with a family visit.  We really enjoy our cousins’ company and their driveway is in a very quiet neighborhood and very peaceful for sleeping in the Scamp.  Additionally, the property is surrounded by heavenly tasting oranges which provide a great, seemingly endless treat.

The easy drive from Santa Barbara to Pinnacles National Park took about 3 ½ hours.  If you go, make sure to refuel your tow vehicle right when you leave the freeway (in our case the town of King City) because there is no fuel once you head inland to the park.  Also, there are two entrances to the park and if you are staying at the campground you must use the EAST Entrance.  This is very important as there is no campground access from the West side and the two entrances are very far from each other (over an hour’s drive).  The ranger station at the East gate entrance was unoccupied when we arrived and we simply drove directly to our site (#69).  I chose this site because it is far away from the other sites and, as it turned out, is a fantastic campsite being extremely private and quiet (and very dark at night).  Site #69 doesn’t have hookups like sites at the busier RV area close to the park entrance, but the solitude more than compensates for this.  Additionally, we only were staying two nights so hookups weren’t necessary.  There is a water spigot close by the campsite and a central dump station at the park entrance.  We arrived with a super full battery charge of 12.9 volts (charged while driving), full Fresh tank, 50% Grey tank, and 25% Black tank.  We put our solar panels out in the sun and our Scamp’s voltage shot up to 14.1 volts and kept that up as it charged the Scamp’s battery.  We had a nice lunch after arriving and then walked around the campground.  There is a small campground store which offers some souvenirs and camping supplies.  There is also WiFi near the store ($10/wk, $7/day, or $3/hr).  We couldn’t get cell service or HDTV signals at the campground but the WiFi allowed us to send messages and make phone calls over Verizon service.  There are some benches near the store where it’s possible to sit and watch for Condors and make calls, text, and browse the internet.

Pinnacles National Park is home to the California condor and also the impressive Pinnacles rocks on the high peaks.  Pinnacles was formed by an ancient volcanic eruption.  The area sits along the San Andreas Fault and, as a result, has unusual rock formations.  There were wild turkeys in the campground when we were there and they provided some amusement with their funny noises and colorful fanfare.  The skies at the park can be very dark at night (we planned our trip during a New Moon so it would be especially dark) and provide fabulous opportunities for star gazing.

After having a very pleasant night’s sleep, we headed out early for a long hike on Condor Gulch Trail to see the famous high peaks.  This hike is moderately strenuous and a long hike from the campground but can be shortened significantly by driving directly to the trailhead entrance at the Bear Gulch Nature Center parking area.  On the hike, we saw quail, deer, turkeys, vultures, squirrels, and the Pinnacles Rock Formations.  It’s worth noting that you cannot see the Pinnacles rock formations from within the campground.  So, it’s really important to get out and see the Pinnacles.  The absolutely easiest way to do it is just to walk toward Condor Gulch Trail at the bottom of the campground and take the short walk to the viewing area (a bench that looks up at the Pinnacles).  After our 4 hour hike (about 10 miles round trip), we were ready to relax a bit.   We had a nice lunch and strolled around the campground and went to the condor observation bench and watched the vultures (we didn’t see any condors on this trip).  We were treated to a spectacular starry night and we spent some time seated outside our Scamp looking up and taking pictures.  We saw plenty of satellites overhead and even an incredible meteor race across the sky (seemingly for seconds as we had to rotate our heads to continue to watch it until it fizzled out).  The next morning we used the central dump station near the park entrance to dump before heading out to Big Sur.

Big Sur is only a couple of hours drive from Pinnacles and a great location for spectacular ocean scenery and viewing the redwoods.  We arrived at Pfeiffer Big Sur Campground around noon (although check in is at 2 p.m.).  Fortunately, the ranger let us in early and we were able to set up at our meadow site #77 and have lunch.  There is a water spigot next to site #77 and the central dump station is at the other end of the campground.  There are no electric hookups at this park.  There is almost no cell phone service unless you hike up to either Buzzards Roost or Valley View trails.  Alternatively, one can drive a mile or so South to the Big Sure Taphouse restaurant up the hill and get free WiFi.  We wandered after lunch and enjoyed walking through the redwood forest which sits between two sections of the campground.  We also purchased some t-shirts and souvenirs at the Big Sur Lodge (walking distance from the campground).  Wild turkeys blocked our way on one of the nature paths and we chose an alternative route.  They can get a bit feisty and chase you if you get too close (we don’t know what happens if they catch you though).  The next morning we had pancakes for breakfast in the Scamp and hiked up to Buzzards Roost (moderately strenuous mountain hike up switchbacks to top of mountain peak – 5 miles round trip).  There are some nice sweeping ocean views at the top.  We had a wild hail storm at night!  The campground was very quiet and we were the only ones camping in our meadow area.  We also hiked the Valley View Trail (2 miles RT) on one day which provided some nice ocean views at the top (and cell service).  We enjoyed watching movies at night (downloaded from Netflix and using the Jackery 500 to supply power to the TV).  On the morning we left, three deer grazed right outside our Scamp’s windows!  We dumped on our way out and headed to Pismo Beach.  Because the coast highway was shut down South due to rock slides, we had to double back North and cut across inland farm country to reach the 101 and then continue South to Pismo (about a three hour drive).

Oceano Campground is a bright and open campground right next to the Oceano Dunes beach.  The hookup site area (right at the campground entrance) offers sites close together and not nearly as nice and spread out as the non-hookup area.  We chose site #46 in the non-hookup area which is fantastic and has a trail right next to it leading to the lagoon and beach!  There is a water spigot right next to the site with a picnic table and fire pit.  We used our solar panels to generate all the electricity we needed and didn’t need to dump as we took care of that at Pfieffer Big Sur Campground the morning we departed.  There isn’t a dump station at this campground, but there is one a few miles away at the North campground.  There is plenty of cell phone coverage here as well as HDTV channels to tune into.  We enjoyed walking the lagoon trails and along the beach.  Oceano Dunes is the only beach in California where cars are allowed and we did see a number of dune buggies and ATVs driving out to the sand dunes for recreation.  Our friends Jim and Betsy live nearby and came out and shared a great Mexican meal with us at our picnic table!  We later walked along the lagoon path.  Pismo Beach and its surrounding communities (like Oceano) are beautiful quaint beach towns and we had a great time during our visit here.  I expect we will come back to this campground again in the future and stay a number of nights as there is so much to do (such as ATV rentals to ride up and down the sand dunes – when they reopen after Covid).

We really enjoyed this trip, mostly for its diversity (which included animals, plants, mountains, and the ocean).  Seeing the ancient volcanic geography and dark starry skies at Pinnacles was amazing.  And, experiencing the awesomeness of the giant redwoods and a crazy hail storm at Pfieffer Big Sur campground (as well as seeing wild turkeys and the spectacular coastline of Big Sur) was inspiring.  Visiting the laid back beach cities of Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach was also pretty incredible.  In addition to all this, we were able to successfully test a new portable grey water tank holding system (look for an article on this in the near future) and had a couple of misadventures! The door key twisted off inside the Scamp lock on day one of the trip (fortunately, we were able to continue our trips, albeit with the front door left unlocked for the remaining 8 days!).  A new electronic replacement lock will be the subject of a future article!  And our Maxx fan stopped working (although we called Scamp and the fix was simply resetting the fuse).  For all the adventures and misadventures, just getting out in nature every so often is definitely worth it as a great way to recharge (and this trip provided plenty of that!).  Highly recommended adventure!

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly. 

Coast Trip from San Diego to Coos Bay Oregon With Stops (10 Days)

150 150 gavin

Coast Trip from San Diego to Coos Bay Oregon With Stops (10 Days)
October 18th – 28th 2020

Driving the iconic Highway 1 along the coast of California from San Diego to its northern border is a must adventure for anyone who enjoys beautiful views, sensational campgrounds, and excitement on many levels.  It’s not a drive for the faint of heart since there are long portions of very windy roads.  But, with a small travel trailer, it’s entirely manageable.   And, there are many different types of geography to explore and plenty of really nice state parks to make the trip enjoyable.  We decided that it would be a great addition to cross the border into Oregon and stay over in Coos Bay before heading back home.

We made reservations just a week before the trip and were lucky in finding site openings in wonderful state park campgrounds.  And every site we had was a really nice one.  It seems if one is flexible and can vary campground locations depending on availability then openings are more easily attained.  Our main goal was to get up the coast without driving more than 4 hours at a time and stopping at some key locations such as San Simeon, Santa Cruz, and the Redwoods.  We prefer to stay at state parks because the sites are often spread out and tend to be economical.  When planning our stay overs, we also consider our needs for dumping, water replenishment, and electricity demand.  We generally need to dump every few days, but can usually find dump stations at gas stations if they are not available at campsites (which they often are in at least a centralized dump station at the campground).

Our first stop was at my Uncle Mel’s house in Santa Barbara (about a 3 1/2 hour drive from San Diego).  We parked in the driveway on the quiet street and got set up with water and electricity.  We made some pasta for lunch in our Scamp and my cousin Melvin joined us.  We then enjoyed a stroll in Tucker’s Grove Park with my cousin Jon and his dog Charlie.  In the afternoon, we enjoyed sitting and admiring my Uncle Mel’s beautiful artwork in his backyard studio garden.  My cousins made a really nice family BBQ dinner in the backyard in the evening.  The next day we visited some of our family in the Santa Barbara cemetery (along with a family of foxes who live there).  After a really quiet and restful sleep, we left for Hearst San Simeon State Park in the morning.

Hearst San Simeon State Park, about a three hour drive from Santa Barbara, is an enjoyable campground above a beautiful beach (which is within walking distance).  We paid $43 for Site #17.  There are water spigots at the campground and a free central dump.  The cellphone service here is poor (Verizon).  However, we were able to pick up 9 channels of crystal clear high definition television signals (HDTV)!  We set up our briefcase solar panel on the picnic bench behind our Scamp and were able to charge up our batteries while out exploring.  Moonstone Beach is a fantastic location for beachcombing.  There are so many beautiful rocks on the sand, including the famous shimmering moonstones.  We were lucky enough to find a few.  California Jade and other rocks can also be collected on Moonstone Beach.  We just purchased a rock tumbler and are currently tumbling these tones, hoping to transform them into semi-precious jewels!  If you are lucky, you might also find a sand dollar on the beach (we did!).  We also visited Elephant Seal Beach which is close by and enjoyed viewing and listening to the hundreds of seals that migrate through here.

The next day, after about a two and a half hour drive north, we arrived at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (Santa Cruz).  We paid $43 for Site #27, which is a good and shady private site.  There are water spigots here but no dumps.  The cellphone service is poor (Verizon), but the HDTV is great since the campground is high up on a hill above downtown Santa Cruz.  There are really nice hikes at this campground, with one that leads up to an observation deck.  We were able to see deer, plenty of woodpeckers, beautiful redwoods, ocean views, and a nice sunset.  We drove down into town (about an 8 minute drive) and parked close to the Santa Cruz wharf.  We had a nice long walk to the end of the wharf and saw seals resting below on the wooden pilings.  The next morning, after a long hike and viewing the sites from the observation deck above the campground, we drove to the UC Santa Cruz campus (about 15 minute drive) and purchased a Slug t-shirt in their student store.  We also walked a bit on the campus which is like walking through the redwoods in a state park.

The next morning, we spent about four hours driving north to Van Damme State Park (Ft. Bragg).  We paid $48 for site #68 – a pleasant, private site (the meadow sites near #68 are also good).  There is no cellphone service here (Verizon) and no over the air HDTV.  There is a gas station very close by.  There are water spigots and a $10 dump site.  The area campsite was too shady for using our solar panel, but we had plenty of power to charge all our devices using our lithium powered Jackery 500 battery power bank!   There’s a nice long walk to a beautiful beach down below the campground.  We found abalone shells on the beach.  There are great hiking trails in the redwoods as well as an interesting pygmy forest hike close by.  We met some really friendly people at the campground and had a very relaxing stay here.

The next day we drove four hours north to reach Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (located in Humbolt County near the town of Orick, about 50 miles north of Eureka).  The park is over 14,000 acres and is home to some very old giant Coast Redwoods.  There is a big meadow and you can sometimes see large Elk grazing (we did!).  This campground is about 1,500 feet above sea level and was a bit chilly when we visited in October (clear and sunny but in the 50’s during the day).  The chill gave us a chance to try out our gas powered Scamp furnace (which is very effective at quickly creating hot air and blowing it into the Scamp).  It doesn’t take long for the Scamp to get really toasty with the furnace running!  There is no dump here, but there are water spigots.  We paid $43 for site #49 which is nice and private (but too shady for solar panels).  We had no cellphone service (Verizon) here and couldn’t receive any over the air HDTV signals.  Our water bandit came in handy in filling up our water jug as the faucet sprayed too wildly for the stream to be contained and efficiently fill the jug.  The redwood hikes are spectacular with trees so huge they seem to be from fairy tales.  We watched a couple large bull Elks in the meadow in front of the visitor center for a couple of hours in the morning.  The visitor center is nice for souvenirs (I bought a cool hat that says Redwood National & State Parks and I purchased the Elk pin for the hat since we saw two big Elk!).  This park is a must visit.

The drive to Coos Bay, about four hours north along the Oregon coast from Prairie Creek Redwoods SP, is spectacular.  With huge rocks jutting out of the ocean along the rugged coastline, the views on this part of the journey are spectacular.  We parked for lunch at a beach rest stop in the Gold Beach area and had fantastic views right out of Scamp’s rear window.  Sunset Bay State Park (Coos Bay area, Oregon) is a wonderful campground with nice amenities.  We paid $45 / night for our full hookup site #D01 and stayed two nights (note:  we paid a 30% surcharge imposed on non-Oregon residents).  The site we had was an end spot and very quiet and there is good spacing between campsites here.  We had no cellphone service (Verizon) and no over the air HDTV reception.  However, there is an RV park close by and there is mobile data (Verizon) reception out in front.  The hosts at Sunset Bay SP are really friendly and spent a lot of time talking to us about the area.  There is a great beach within walking distance (a trail leads from the campground to the beach).  In addition, there is an awesome hike (about 2 miles each way) along the top of the bluffs to a state park called Shore Acres Botanical Gardens (it was originally an estate owned by a timber baron, but sold to the State of Oregon to use as a park in 1942).  There are a couple of homes on the property as well as wonderful gardens.  We met a nice couple from Salem, OR (Todd & Yvonne) who occupied the site next to ours and they recommended the botanical garden hike.  They were taking their first trip in their small Helio travel trailer and we enjoyed talking with them about all things small travel trailers!  We’ve kept in touch via email since coming home and learned we share many common interests.

It was nice having a small travel trailer on our journey because we often unhitched and were able to easily explore the areas with just our SUV.  We had a couple of such opportunities while in Oregon.  We drove about 20 minutes from Sunset Bay SP to visit the waterside town of Coos Bay and also the fishing town of Charleston (where we purchased some excellent teriyaki smoked steelhead trout which we had on our breakfast toast the next morning)!

Having completed our coastal adventure from San Diego to Coos Bay, OR, we opted to take the more direct way home via I-5 on an inland route.  We drove about 5 hours from Coos Bay, OR to Weed, California (Mt. Shasta area).  This was our first stop during the trip at a private RV park (places we tend to avoid).  The Friendly RV Park in Weed, CA, was actually very pleasant and not very crowded.  It’s a full hookup RV park that is close to the freeway but is not very noisy.  We paid $49 / night for Site #13 (a pull through full hookup site).  The WiFi was weak and we couldn’t get the cable TV to work.  We did have cellphone service (Verizon).  We were also advised not to use a hose because it would freeze overnight.  We used our internal boondocking water tank.  We kept our water heater and furnace on all night as a precaution and to keep warm as it was cold.  There is a limited view of Mt. Shasta behind the campground (I sent up the drone and captured a full view of the mountain).  There’s not too much to do in Weed, but just a short 5 minute drive is the small mountain town of Mt. Shasta which has some nice little shops and a great view of the mountain.  This area is home to many legends including the 7 foot tall Lemurians – the beings that are said to live beneath Mt. Shasta; legend has it that they’ve evolved beyond the spiritual into the physical plane, and walk around town in white robes.  However, we only saw the town statue of one.  The next morning was very cold (18 degrees).  Hot cocoa helped!  Fortunately, everything in the Scamp was working except the dump valves which were frozen shut.  We were able to dump a couple hours later at a Pilot station when the temperatures were in the 60s.

After breakfast the next day, we reached Oakland five hours after leaving Weed and arrived at my sister Hilary’s house around 1 p.m.  We set up the Scamp on the street and, like last time, used our leveling wedge to get the Scamp reasonably level side to side (since the street is very angled).  We enjoyed seeing my sister and her family and had a nice dinner in her backyard.  The next morning we all took a long walk through a nice neighborhood on Alameda island.  We had breakfast in the Scamp before heading out to our last stop on a ranch in Bakersfield.

The Rock’n H Ranch is a very fun miniature donkey farm out in the hills of Bakersfield (about halfway between Oakland and San Diego).  It is a Boondocker’s Welcome location and there was no charge for our stay (although we did give the host a small gift for having us).  The host is very generous and has about 20 acres of land (located down a long bumpy dusty dirt road off the main road) and told us we could park anywhere.  We had access to water.  There was cellphone coverage (Verizon) and lots of HDTV channels.  We set up our Scamp on a hillside near the donkey pen and the donkeys seemed very interested in what we were doing as we set up our Scamp!  The host allowed us to pet and feed the animals.  There are also goats, horses, a cat and dog, and a llama on the farm.  We spent a fun afternoon with the host hanging out and playing with and feeding the animals.  We then had a nice quiet evening.  I took some drone images of the ranch at sunrise the next morning at the request of the host.  We left fairly early to be able to get home in time for lunch and then wash and clean our Scamp and SUV before putting them in the garage.

We had a fantastic trip, lots of adventures, and made some new friends.  Fortunately, there were no hard lessons on this trip and we look forward to planning our next adventure!  We did learn a few things about some supplies to improve future trips and will write about those in future articles.

Disclaimer:  You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale.  These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences.  However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer.  It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly.