California Dreamin’ — The Swatsons in SLC

The Dog Drama & Depression post was a good picture of what our day-to-day life is right now. However real it may be, it’s not super fun. After accidentally writing a novel about dog poop, I decided to make two separate posts and break life down into fun and not so fun rather that writing about things in straight chronological order. Highlights of the year so far include the following:

Katie & Marc’s wedding
California coast road trip

Okay, I thought that list was going to be longer, but that’s all I’ve got. Anything else good that happened is trivial, like Costco selling this new bag of fire roasted mix vegetables that are pretty tasty. Ian got new socks. We tried a new protein powder we like better than the old one. We’re clearly in a thrilling phase of life right now.

Katie & Marc’s Wedding

Katie and Marc’s wedding in March was AMAZING. Such a fun time with such great people. It was, arguably, way more fun than either of my weddings, but it’s also easier to enjoy yourself when you’re not the bride. It was so nice to celebrate our favorite people with our favorite people! Shoutout to Ian for being the best honorary bridesmaid because he was the only one who could reach to put on Katie’s veil and because he brought us chicken nuggets.

We managed to get a good photo of just the two of us.

I spent a lot of time up Katie’s dress that day.

A Section Dedicated to Don James

If I could live my life with an easy button that made Don appear for a big bear hug, I think my quality of life would be vastly improved. He gets his own section of the blog because he’s one of the all-time best humans in the entire history of the universe, and I love him so much. Hi, Don! I love you and miss you!

California Road Trip

Despite the unexpected dog poop explosion situation leading up to this trip, we were pleased to be able to actually go to California in April. People in Utah always give us a hard time because we’d never been to California, but they lack the spatial awareness that California is on the entire other end of the country compared to Maryland. Anyway, we decided that it was time to finally go to the Golden State while we still live in the west.

For this trip, we tried something a little different. We flew to San Francisco and rented a camper van! We had never camped in a setup fancier than tent/car camping before, but we decided to splurge a little and use this trip to celebrate Ian’s 30th birthday and our fifth wedding anniversary.

Day 1: San Francisco to Santa Cruz

We started the trip off with a largely uneventful flight to San Francisco. This was coming off the heels of all the ICE presence in airports and TSA issues, so we were a little nervous for airport trouble. Fortunately, we didn’t run into problems and made it safely to our first destination.

From the airport we took the little sky train to a fancy Hyatt attached to the airport so we could eat breakfast and kill some time before we were scheduled to pick up the camper van. Ian got spam fried rice, and I got a crabcake benedict. The food, the coffee, the staff, and the people watching all made for a pleasant surprise.

From the restaurant we took an Uber to the camper rental place, which was kind of in the middle of nowhere. This did not deter us because the Salt Lake location is the same way. We’d been there once before because they were doing an open house to tour the campers, which is how we originally found out about the company. It’s called Road Surfer. It’s a European based company, but they have a solid base here in the US too.

We picked up the van with only a couple of minor hiccups that they had to fix before we hit the road, then we were off to the races. We drove along the coast down Highway 1 with our end destination of the day being a campsite in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. We stopped to stretch our legs at Half Moon Bay, which was quite picturesque.

We had a few learning curves when it came to camping in the van. Things like water and electric hookups are not typically things we have to worry about with car camping or backpacking. With the help of some kind neighbors, we figured it out. While day one was mostly a travel day, we were impressed with California so far. It helped that our campsite was right in the redwoods too.

Day 2: Whale Watching

The primary adventure for the first full day of vacation was a whale watching tour. This wasn’t just any whale watching tour, though. This was a sea-level, speed boat, super fast and small special tour situation. Only six people per tour plus the captain (a lady captain), and the co-owner of the boat, a very nice but kind of crusty older guy. They were both pretty cool, as were the other four people on the tour. It was a vegan couple visiting from wine country and two individual older ladies who just go whale watching for fun sometimes. You’d think that combination of people would be pretty bougie, but not the case. Everyone was surprisingly down to earth. The co-owner of the boat did most of the talking while the captain drove. He was an engineer for a long time then retired early to live in California for bird watching and found himself running this company. He needed to wash his hair, but he was fun.

Here’s the tour boat. It looks scarier than it actually was.

We saw whales! Two pods from the same larger family or orca whales, to be more specific. We were on the water for about 2-3 hours, and at the end of the tour the first group of whales we saw met up with the second group of whales, which was pretty neat. It was the matriarch and her daughters and granddaughters, plus her uncle Jimmy. Go figure, another uncle Jimmy (I already have three).

When the whales are spotted, all the different tour boats flock to them like vultures, which felt a little icky. Our captain was really good about making a point to keep a safe distance and not be a d*ck about it like some of the other boats. We saw these massive tour boats with so many people standing on one side of the boat to snap their pictures that it looked like the boat was going to tip over with so much weight on just one side. It felt good not to be a vulture about it, and we still got pretty close. We didn’t take a ton of pictures because we were trying to be in the moment, but here are some dorsal fins for you. Uncle Jimmy’s was six feet long!

After the tour we went to the restaurant on the marina, and it was incredible. We got calamari, fish tacos, and fish and chips. Yum!

After lunch, we stopped at Garrapata State Park along the coast near Carmel for a hike before heading to our final destination, the campground at Pinnacles National Park. This hike had a little bit of everything - ocean views, redwood trees, and wildflower desert vibes.

We ran into a bit of trouble when we got to our campground in Pinnacles because the van wouldn’t connect to the electricity hookup. We thought, “Fantastic. Night two of this trip and the van is broken.” The van charged while we drove, and it had a battery generator, so it wasn’t like one night without hookups was going to cause all our food to spoil or anything. But van life was still very new to us, so we were definitely panicking a little to a lotta bit. Don’t worry, the next night the electricity worked just fine, so nothing was wrong with the van. They just had old, outdated hookups at the campground. There was another person who had issues with it too. The camp host was super nice about trying to help us fix it. It all worked out in the end.

Day 3: Pinnacles National Park

We started our third day on edge because we still thought our van might be broken at this point. We tried to put our anxiety aside and enjoy the hike we had planned for the day. Pinnacles is in the middle of bum-F nowhere, so it’s not like there was a whole lot we could do at that point even if the electricity in the van was broken.

The hike was actually super cool. There were a ton of neat rock formations, a narrow staircase scramble situation, a cave, a high alpine lake, plus pinecones the size of pineapples! It had a little bit of everything in six-ish miles.

After the hike, we headed back to civilization and got lunch at this really cool brewery in Monterey called Alvarado Street. The calamari had fried jalapeños and fried lemons, and it was even better than the whale watching calamari. After lunch, we headed to our campsite at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park (redwood tree territory) and enjoyed a rainy night listening to true crime podcasts in the van. It was quite peaceful just hanging out in the van with the side door open with the bug net up. It felt like you were still outside but protected from the elements, similar to a screened in porch. We were sold on the van at that point. We understood the hype. Camping in ground tent? No thank you. We’d experienced how the other half lives now.

Day 4: Redwoods & Beaches

It was still raining the next morning in Pfeiffer Big Sur, but that didn’t stop us from doing a hike. You forget what high humidity feels like living in the desert. It was awful! We did a little bop of a hike called Buzzards’ Roost. The name was fitting because we did, in fact, see two buzzards along with slimy banana slugs.

After the hike, we headed back down the coast to do a little bibbidi-boppidi-boo of a hike called Partington Cove, which was only about a mile and a half. It was worth the stop, though. Big Sur is awesome.

Back on Highway 1 and another pit stop for elephant seals!

Our next stop was an impromptu one for lunch in a little town called Cambria. We ate at this cute place called Robin’s Cafe in the outdoor covered garden in the rain. Definitely the best meal of the entire trip. Great post-hike local beer, brussel sprouts, spring rolls, a short rib bowl for Ian, and a salmon bowl for me. That plus a trip to the French bakery across the street made for a fantastic day of hiking and eating, two of our favorite things.

Next stop was another short hike at the Montana de Oro bluffs. We also passed through a town where all of the street signs looked like they were straight out of the movie Shrek.

Our last stop was to our campground at Pismo Beach State Park. We had our camp routine on lock at this point. Shower, sweep up and tidy, put up all the window shades so people couldn’t see inside the van when it got dark and the lights were still on, make dinner, eat dinner and listen to a true crime podcast, debrief on the day’s adventures and finalize the next day’s itinerary, read, go to bed. Van life experts (not really, but we were really enjoying ourselves).

Day 5: Beach Bums

This was the day we were supposed to take a boat tour to one of the islands in Channel Islands National Park and do a day hike there. However, our boat tour was cancelled due to rough seas so we had to pivot. We walked to the beach from our campsite and had a slow morning walking on the beach looking for shells and sand dollars and watching the surfers.

Next, we headed to Santa Barbara for a quick hike and some lunch. Santa Barbara was beautiful but way too bougie for our taste. You could see the islands we were supposed to be on that day from our backup hike, which was both cool and mildly depressing at the same time. There are four islands that make up Channel Islands National Park. Tragically, about a week or two after our trip one of the more remote islands caught on fire from a flare gun and a significant portion of it burned. Pretty crazy and sad.

From Santa Barbara we drove to Malibu, which was even more Richie Rich than Santa Barbara. So much lip filler, suede loafers, and old guys with too much plastic surgery in leather jackets. We stopped for a beer at Malibu Brewing Company and couldn’t get out of there fast enough once we sat down. Malibu is picturesque, but not our scene at all. To add insult to injury, the dinner we got in Malibu destroyed my insides. Must’ve been the universe telling us to get the heck out of there. Fortunately, our campground at Leo Carrillo State Park was more tucked away and free from the uber rich.

Day 6: So Long, SoCal

For as scary as the people in Malibu were, the hike we did in the morning was amazing. The Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area is one of the few places in Southern California we’d go back to if we had to.

Northern California with all the redwood trees, we can’t wait to go back. Southern California, we’re good. We tried to stop for lunch in Santa Monica, which was a huge bust because it would’ve cost us $100 to park the van. Driving through LA was was too crowded and not worth the hype.

We made an unplanned pit stop in Palm Springs on our wat to Joshua Tree. We saw someone do a hit and run in the parking lot and left a note for the car that got hit with what we saw and the license plate number of the car who hit them. Palm Springs was a little too much desert for our liking. We were ready to get out of there and get to our camp spot in Joshua Tree.

We accidentally drove through the Mojave National Preserve, which was actually pretty cool. One great thing about the van during a road trip through the middle of nowhere is that you have a built in bathroom no matter where you are! Gotta pee in the middle of the desert? Not a problem, just pull over and do your thing. It was one of the highlights of the van for sure.

Our campsite at Joshua Tree National Park was really neat. We walked around and hung outside. Oddly enough, I got a ton of mosquito bites through my clothes at camp that night. Desert mosquitos definitely weren’t on my bingo card, but a small price to pay for the views.

Day 7: Joshua Tree

We did a couple of short hikes in Joshua Tree to close out our trip because we were limited to just a couple of hours in the park that morning and because the desert all kind of looks the same regardless of whether your hike is three miles vs. 13. Technically we did bag a peak by hiking to the top of Ryan Mountain, which was stunning and surprisingly not crowded. You’d think people would want to get an early start to beat the heat, but not so much. Fine by us.

After our morning hiking we set off for St. George. We accidentally drove through the Mojave National Preserve, which was actually pretty cool. One great thing about the van during a road trip through the middle of nowhere is that you have a built in bathroom no matter where you are! Gotta pee in the middle of the desert? Not a problem, just pull over and do your thing. It was one of the highlights of the van for sure.

Our last campsite was at a lovely resort called Hidden Springs RV. We felt like we were living a life of luxury here with all the amenities they had. The bathrooms and showers were amazing. They had a food truck on site. This place was recommended to us by Ian’s best friend, and it did not disappoint. You could hike to BLM land right off the campground too. We were bummed we couldn’t stay longer, but I’m sure we’ll be back!

After our last night at Hidden Springs we headed back home. The biggest takeaways from our trip are that we do not like Southern California and we love a camper van. We understand the appeal of RV life now. We can’t afford a camper van (a nice one will run you almost $200k), but it was so worth it to rent one and test it out (I had a coupon).

We got ourselves into a bit of a pickle with our camp set up when we got a dog the size of a small horse. She won’t fit in the rooftop tent even if she had a hope and a prayer of climbing up there. She’s too anxious to sleep in the back of the car while we sleep on the roof. She likes to have eyes on us. It’s also yet to be determined if she’ll fit in our ground tent. We set it up in our living room last weekend, and it was pretty cozy in there with all three of us. We have a camping trip planned with a couple friends next weekend, so stay tuned to see how Rita’s first camping trip turns out!

As always, thank you for taking the time to read all this. Rita is turning into quite the hiker, so as summer roads open up and the hiking season gets into full swing we’ll be going on many more adventures with her. A lot of the hikes that we would normally do are in protected watersheds where dogs aren’t allowed, so we’re forced to get more creative and check out new hikes that we haven’t done before and revisit hikes we haven’t done in a while.

This whole dog parenting thing has been much more of a roller coaster ride than I remember it being with Gidget back in college, but we can do hard things. Realistically, we’ve only got a couple of years with Rita before she counts as geriatric because she’s a Dane, so we better make the most of them.

Love and miss you all!