Let me just say first and foremost that I have never liked camping, even as a child. It was never fun, it was always a struggle. My father was an alcoholic and would use camping as an excuse to drink. I realize that many people do that, but when we had to bring coolers full of beer and almost no food because it wasn’t as important as the beer there was obviously a problem. He also had back issues so setting up a campsite wasn’t something that he could really physically manage without taking loads of pain medication…see where I’m going with this?? Then we would want to go and hike, but he was always too loaded, so we just sat there.
My husband is an Eagle Scout, though and loves to go camping. This past year for Christmas I decided to take a huge step and get him a camping trip that he would enjoy, I would be comfortable with, and most importantly, we could bring the dogs with us. I had searched for months to find the perfect place when I stumbled upon Big Basin Redwoods up in Northern California near Santa Cruz. The first amazing thing about this place is that where we stayed they had tent cabins, which are basically wood framed tents on a platform. They have 2 platform beds, a table, and a wood burning stove inside each one and a bear box, picnic table, and fire pit outside. Several people have said this was glamping. Since there wasn’t any electricity, cell service, or WiFi I didn’t think it was, but maybe you have to use a rock as a pillow for it not to be considered glamping. I’m not sure. There were also real bathrooms and coin operated showers. Let me also add that I LOVE eating in California. Veggie burritos are so much better there and the add so much avocado to everything and it makes me so happy! On the way to Big Basin we stopped in Santa Clarita had ate at a place called Ay Caramba! https://www.aycarambascv.comthat was so good. We did have to wait a little to get a table on the patio since we had the dogs with us, but since it was Sunday morning it was to be expected.
We went hiking in the park one day and we went to Santa Cruz and took the dogs to Bean Hollow State Beach the next day. The beach day was my favorite day. The water was cool, like it always is in California, but the dogs and I got fairly wet. Let me just tell you how incredibly proud I was of my13 year old dog, Hoku, on this trip. First he HATES water with every ounce of his being, but he didn’t seem to have too many hesitations while we were at the beach. He got right in and seemed alright with it and I can’t even begin to tell you how surprised I was. Also when we went hiking he did better than I would have expected. He hiked about 7 miles and seemed like he could have gone even further if we would have let him. Jack, our Labrador was not a fan of camping, though. He cried at night, he was afraid of the Red Woods, and this was surprising too. It was like they switched personalities for that trip.
We went and got lunch at Harbor City Café and there was only 1 table there that didn’t have dogs https://www.harborcafesantacruz.com/. I love the beach, especially when there aren’t too many other people around. Since most kids were back in school already the beach was fairly peaceful. I was totally prepared to go and have to pick up quite a bit of trash that had washed up, but that wasn’t the case at all. As far a trash goes all I found was a dead crab but I left that for the seagulls. I was actually shocked, and pleased that there wasn’t a ton of old plastic bottles, broken flip flops, and other miscellaneous items waiting to be disposed of. I brought bags with me expecting to have to do some major clean up.
The day that we went hiking in the park was beautiful, but I really wish that mosquitos didn’t love me so much. I always spray myself with all kinds of bug spray, the natural kind, the kind with DEET, I have the bracelets, I take the B complex vitamins, and anything else I hear about and hope that they will leave me alone, but they don’t. I don’t really like spiders too much, but I still appreciate them because they eat nasty critters like mosquitos. I did have a few spiders end up in the sheets we brought home with us. Zach did that load of laundry. While we were out I did see a tree that looked like the one that they have to climb up in Pet Sematary.
We stopped in Gilroy, California on our way home. This is always a place that I have wanted to visit. Just a couple weeks before we were there The Gilroy Garlic Festival had a 19 year old went with assault style weapons and started shooting people and no one knows why. The town was still trying to come to terms with it and there were “Gilroy Strong” banners around. We stopped at Garlic World https://garlicworld.com/and I loaded up on pickled garlic and garlic hot sauce. We also had lunch at https://garliccitycafe.com/and the cream of garlic soup is amazing!!
When we got back from our trip I went to work the next day and we were getting ready to have staff day at the end of the week. The funny thing about it was the theme of staff day this year was camping. I didn’t realize that before we went on our trip or I would have made sure not to pack all of my camping clothes, since the smelled like campfire and were absolutely filthy. This fit with the theme, but I didn’t want to force anyone else to have to deal with that. Thankfully I did buy a new shirt at the Big Basin Camp Storehttp://www.bigbasintentcabins.com/store-camping-supply/that I wore for staff day.
Overall, I had a good time camping, with the exception being the mosquitos. I don’t really feel the need to do it often. It doesn’t really feel like a vacation to me since you have to work so hard just to do simple things that start a fire and make a meal. I was told that the North Rim of the Grand Canyon has similar camping with the actual toilets and coin operated showers. You have to bring your own tent, but I think you can bring your dogs too. I’ll have to investigate that more though. Maybe it could be an adventure over Spring Break. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, which, I know that many people think is weird since I live in Las Vegas and am less than 4 hours away from it.
I’m trying to get out of my comfort zone more. Maybe I’ll find out that I’ll like some rather unexpected things! We’ll have to wait and see!
