Oh it's a bit cold - but we're content as seals in San Simeon.
Ah - another Shearer camping adventure! We packed up momma's new car with the new family tent and our camping supplies and headed up the coast to San Simeon State Park, just north of Morro Bay. For those not familiar with the California Coast, San Simeon is considered "Central Coast" and features rolling hills and pine bluffs that drop into the blue Pacific. It's awesome.
After a 4.5 hour drive we reached the campground and set out to out site#65, which ended up being in the middle of a group of 40-something men obviously having a guys weekend. No thanks. We asked for a different site and set out again through the winding roads of the campground to find ourselves at site #111, featuring a tiny sloped site where our giant tent could only fit on the parking spot. A few sites down were a bunch of 20-somethings bumping the dance music out of the back of a pick up and throwing horseshoes, fun, but not for us. So again we asked for another site and given #11 on the upper loop, PERFECT:
Tatum loved that we had two parking curbs on site to walk up and over, up and over. I've written about it before, this girl is obsessed with stepping.
We enjoyed ourselves, especially after 7pm when Tatum went down for the night and we relaxed into our happy hour reading books, sipping cocktails, and watching the night come in. Tatum had a bit of a hard time sleeping since she was fighting a constant cough that would awake her. It seems that each time we're camping, she's suffering from a cold/runny nose/cough. But the camping must go on, so her immunity is challenged (or perhaps strengthened).
On Saturday we checked out the elephant seals that nest about 12 miles up the coast from San Simeon. The seals didn't move fast enough for Tatum, or perhaps it was the absence of legs and fur that just didn't appeal to her, but she didn't care for them. Andrew and I were entralled observing the seals as pairs of males battled, others laid asleep, and others slowly came in and out of the ocean. When she'd scream in frustration after we viewed the seals for too long, we'd hand her a few rocks or hit the ground for a walk around the area. Tatum can pass loads of time by sitting, collecting rocks, trying to fit as many as possible in one hand, passing the rocks over to us then asking for them back, stacking the rocks, placing the rocks on other rocks, and so on. Thankfully there were lots of rocks around to rely on.
Later we headed down to the beach. The weather was too cool to go swimming, in fact we didn't bring our suits because the forecast was for 55 degree weather. But it seemed to warm up to about 70 and other folks took the sunshine as the cue to go swimming. We rolled up our pants and took to the waves. Tatum was enthralled with the ocean. She took off directly for the ocean and was thrilled to have waves crash on her feet. We walked in and out of waves for a long time as she demanded (yes, and I mean demanded) for the waves to crash and run up over her toes and feet. She would fuss at the ocean if the wave did not reach far enough up shore to touch her. When a large wave would crash I'd sweep Tatum up and run back as to not drench ourselves. She laughed in excitement at the thrill. Soaked, we returned to camp for a warm dinner and our warm pajamas.
We hit the road early on Sunday to return to LA and unload. As we went to bed that night both Andrew and I noticed the absence of the crashing waves of the ocean that lulled us to sleep over the weekend. Tatum slept like a baby should and her coughing improved. For more photos of the trip, check out our Flickr pictures.
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