A Wet Pismo Beach

Wednesday: (01/13) Our campsite was quite green and a bit damp after the rain last night. There weren't many campers.

We got up about 0630 and took a walk on the beach. The water was the highest we've ever seen it, almost no beach left. Turns out the high tide was at 0730. As we were watching from what we thought was the edge, we had to dash as it decided to come in further, suddenly. We walked up Grand Ave into Grover Beach stopping for breakfast at the Station Grill by the Amtrak train station. After breakfast we took a walk further up Grand Ave stopping at a couple of thrift stores and a hardware store then returned to camp. We decided to move from our existing campsite to one with more sun next door. One of the problems with late arrivals is that you don't get the best sites but they always seem to appear the next day so we usually only register for one night on arrival.

I raised the solar panels and we're getting some nice sun today especially considering that we had a deluge most of last night.

We got the car in gear so Lou made a run to some more thrift stores while I relaxed in camp.

Lou fixed a nice salad, no lettuce but broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, European bologna with corn salsa for lunch. For dinner she fixed butter beans, wieners, bell peppers, onions, with salsa topped with Parmesan cheese.


Thursday: (01/14) We had maple-brown sugar oatmeal with bananas for breakfast then took a walk on the beach. We were out about 45 minutes before high tide and stayed out until about an hour after high tide. We wanted to see how high it really got but were a bit disappointed. It didn't get nearly as high as yesterday even though the tide tables said it would be the same. Evidently the storm surge and the creek runoff made a big difference yesterday. A buss load of school kids stopped by the beach. The lagoon at the end of the little creek behind our campsite got rather big.


The water came right up to the dunes. The storm churned up a lot of foam and deposited it on the beach.


The foam looks rather interesting. The sky was clear so the view of the Pismo pier was nice.


When the water was up there was no beach.

Lou fixed an early lunch of croissants with dried red tomato smoked cheese. We visited Walmart's, Albertson's market and trader Joe's for a couple of things. When we returned, Lou fixed coleslaw for a late lunch.

My afternoon task was cleaning the RV battery compartment. We had dinner at the Pismo Fish and Chips, again then drove up to San Luis Obispo to look around the Farmers market. Always a nice place to visit.

We, especially me,  like Pepper Plant Garlic Hot Sauce. It's better than Tobasco or other hot sauces. Unfortunately, even though it's made in the Garlic capitol, Gilroy, we can't find it near home. Several restaurants around here in Pismo Beach have it and this is where we discovered it. On one of our previous visits here we found it but couldn't remember where.  When we were returning home I remembered it was at Scolari's Market here. We stopped there and I walked right to it. We stocked up. Seems like we are always finding things like this when we're on the road and then get to cart them around for the rest of our trip.

We've been watching some of the old" Murder She Wrote" episodes the past few evenings and that was our entertainment  again tonight.

Friday: (01/15) Lou fixed her version of my breakfast sandwiches. My back has been bothering me so she relieved me of cooking duty. She used french bread, grilled, then added  dried tomato cheese with the European bologna, and a fried egg. We took a nice walk on the beach but didn't stray far until after Lou paid our fees for the next couple of days. We really disappoint some people looking for one of these nice spots by only paying a couple of days at a time. People are always checking the ticket stubs to see how long we're staying. We don't do it to disappoint them it's just that we don't plan very far ahead.

We took a walk up the beach to the pier and enjoyed watching the surfers. The most successful of the 30 or so surfers were to guys using rectangular surfboards (actually bodyboards or boogieboards about 3' long ans 2' wide). I've seen them used by kids close in to the beach but never further out like today. They caught every wave that came near and could spin circles on the wave. The other surfer that caught a lot of waves was a girl. Most everyone else seemed to be just watching the waves go by.

Lou fixed a green salad with tuna and four bean salad as the dressing for lunch. We relaxed at camp all afternoon watching the weekend campers arriving.  I fixed spaghetti for dinner with artichoke french bread.

Saturday: (01/16) Breakfast?? memorable! Lou went out thrifting in San Luis Obispo today. I worked at camp on the computer. Leftover spaghetti for lunch and dinner. Lou enjoyed lunch out in San Luis Obispo


We walked down to the beach at sunset and I took these pictures. Nice cloud formation that turned red across the whole sky. As we were walking out to the beach, the lagoon (pond) at the end of Arroyo Grande Creek reflected the sunset well.


I like silhouette pictures. This was one of the best sunsets we've seen recently.

We attended the campfire about animal tracks. We enjoyed a long chat with some guests from Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. They are originally from Germany but moved to the Island years ago. Also at the campfire we learned that some more big storms were on the way.

Sunday: (01/17) We took our morning walk around the campground and to look at the ocean. It was nice out, overcast but nice. When we tried to register for a couple of more days, they would allow us. They said the campground was closed due to potential flooding to be. They said that the Oceano campground would be open. We drove down to Oceano, all of 1.1 miles. We looked over the campground and found a suitable site and register. We then went over to the nearby Rock and Roll cafe, a restaurant in a couple of railroad diner cars. I had a chorizo omlette, Lou had the tri-tip scramble. We returned to our old camp and quickly readied to roll. I stopped by the dump station and waited for the two RV's ahead of me. The first took 40 minutes to do the jub. His friend tool 10 minutes. When it was my turn it took the usual 5 minutes, as it did for everyuone else. Some people!


Our new site is rather nice. We chose one in the very back of the tent camping area. We saw no need to the electric and water hookup sites largely because they ware like sardines, all in a row right next to each other. We have lots of room and overlook the dunes. The campground is almost empty, evidently lots of campers were scared away.


The storms coming are supposed to be big but will likely be fizzles as usual. The water is high in the pond by our new campsite. Back at our old North Pismo campground there are about a half dozen RV's remaining. Evidently they registered beyond tonight so got to stay. Isn't it going to flood? Evidently not if you pre-registered.

We watched as all the RV's on the beach were hurrying to get off the beach. From our observation it's clear that all the fifth wheel RV's towed by pickups were too much for the trucks and had difficultly getting through the sand. The several motorhomes we say towing their huge toy hauler trailers had no such difficulty. Interesting!

By noon the rain was coming down pretty good. Lou fixed creamy vegetable soup with tuna salad and crackers for lunch. We were settled in until 2pm when we went out for a little drive on some of the back roads. When we returned, Lou fixed a baby pork roast with baked potatoes and green beans for dinner.

Monday: (01/18) It rained much of the night but by morning it had stopped and the wind was starting. We walked around camp and found a half dozen other campers all but one of which left by 10am. We ended up by ourselves here in camp. The rain returned by 10am. Lou was busy house cleaning and I wasn't. Time to relax indoors for a while.

Lou fixed some bologna sandwiches for lunch. A little after noon we drove up to Pismo Beach to the pier to look at the waves and high tide. The wind was blowing pretty good but the rain had mostly stopped. Lots of other people had the same idea for a good look. There were only two surfers out in the really heavy waves. We stopped by the Walmart store in Arroyo Grande. When we came out, the sun was out, the sky was clear and no wind. It was beautiful and remained so all afternoon.


We took a walk to the beach in the afternoon. On the way we watched a bunch of butterflies in a eucalyptus tree near our campsite.


The beach was looking good, even to our feathered friends.

Lou found some firewood left by departing campers when we arrived yesterday, I found some more today. We enjoyed a nice fire for about an hour until a little after 6pm when it started raining again. We buttoned up and went inside. I fixed some chili sizes for dinner. We learned they forced the few remaining campers, and even the camp host,  to leave our old campground this morning. Looks like it won't be reopening for a week or more until after this series of storms goes by. Tomorrow we'll have to decide to stay or head on down the road. Not sure which will win?