The forest moon of Endor

Lucy's dad arrived late Friday evening. This weekend we all went camping on The Forest Moon of Endor (Big Basin, Half Moon Bay). We had a good time. We left mid-day on Saturday, leaving the dog in the care of my friend Ron, at home. We drove west to the coast and started driving on highway 1 for a while. We ended up stopping and accosting "Ranger Bob", for more specific directions to our campsite from the highway. It turns out that "Ranger Bob" was actually "Surfer Jim", or something like that, which, of course, Lucy knew from work, and they started chatty-cathy-ing it up while her dad and I sat in the car starring and the weird wind/surfer/sailing/gliding guys at the beach. Finally we got Lucy back and were informed of the "Secret Squirrel" route that Lucy was informed of from Ranger Bob which apparently was accompanied by a "you'll love it" and a wink... oh good... :).

So we head off and wind and twist and like a good Jewish family bicker and debate about most of the cross streets we pass. When we passed a winery there was instantly total agreement, although they had just closed. :( We found the campsite and after dealing with a very unfriendly forest ranger lady to pay for our camp site, we were there. We unpacked and setup camp, and then promptly left for dinner.

Now, everyone else wanted to go Santa Cruz, which I guess had been the plan, before we took a "three hour tour" after having left at like noon. I managed to work the situation to convince everyone to eat in the closest town of Boulder Creek (oddly enough, Lucy's dad is from Boulder, Colorado). We settled on the Italian joint, and had a good dinner all around.

Back at camp I made a fire and we sat around, bull-shitting and drinking a few beers. We apparently made it into the "family" campsite, as everyone dowsed their lights and it was silent by 10, right when Lucy and I were starting to warm up on the beer drinking. It was a lot of fun trying to be really quite while getting drunk, sort-of fun anyway. Lucy got busted recycling glass bottles in the metal bins at around 11 or midnight, I laughed, and we went to bed.

The next morning we rose, packed camp, and went for a hike. After much kvetching, we settled on a relatively short hike of about 6 miles round trip. We went up Skyline to the sea trail or something close to that, to the Meteor Trail, which took us to a summit where we were supposed to be able to see the sea, but it was fogged in. Still a really nice view though. The downhill was actually worse than the uphill, as the constant downward slope was murder on my knees. Finally at the bottom and back to the car my butt was stationary until we got home.

I stopped for a moment, after having driven away from home for a while, to let Lucy and her dad out at the beach. I took the opportunity to take some educational photographs (I am teaching myself photography and HDR). Then it was the long drive back home. Luckily it is summer now and there was still daylight when we arrived back at the house. Lucy's dad slept upright the whole way home, waking about 5 miles from the house saying "Lucy, where is Sacramento!?"

Ate frozen pizza for dinner and promptly went to bed. I slept great last night! And I am wearing wool socks! Comfy! :p

See more photos here.