I arrived Thursday April 13th, at Thornhill-Broome Campground – Site #44 – this is in Point Mugu State Park and has 69 primitive campsites stretching for two miles along Pacific Coast Highway and right next to the surf of the Pacific Ocean.
It’s a 1:45 minute drive from my house. I drove an hour in the rain before it started clearing up. I was afraid that I was making a bad habit of “MUD-CAMPING” (see my previous trip to San Clemente). However… when I got to the beach, it was gorgeous.
No bike riding on this trip. I had to put my bike into the shop for a replacement front-tire. I had ridden over 3,000 miles on that tire and I wore the rubber off of it in spots (you could see the nylon underneath). There were problems in finding the correct size (650C/ISO 571 – used for smaller road bikes and triathlon bikes) so I couldn’t get my bike back in time for this adventure.
I was at the front entrance at 2:05pm…. 5 minutes after the earliest time allowed. I figured I better get there before the crowds showed up. Here’s what it looked like:
I decided to bring a different tent this time. This tent is way bigger and more convenient for me to setup/tear-down. I was unpacked, settled, eating snacks, and drinking wine in record time (hey… that rhymes)… Such a relief!
At the last second before leaving my house, I threw in a beach chair. It’s in one of the previous pictures… it’s blue, spread out in the sand. BEST IDEA EVER… because…
After 2 hours laying on the beach, eating Parmesan cheese and beef jerky, drinking red wine, without anyone around, waves pounding on the surf, dozing in-and-out…. I felt like a human-being, not a human-doing.
By 5pm I was getting hungry, and the skies were getting a little overcast. So, I cooked a hot meal of “Chicken Fried Rice”. It was actually pretty good. They tried to do some sort of bread-like, dumplings… not great… but I appreciated their effort.
At 6:30pm, the sun was almost down…. Sorry, no beautiful sunset… it was too overcast. By 7:00pm, I expected a horde of noisy campers pulling up in their $200k mega-RV’s. But, I was still pretty much by myself. Between 8:30pm and 9:30pm, people filled in more spots at the campground. I was shocked. “Who sets up their camp, tent, fire, dinner, etc. in the dark?” It was none of my business, I slept very well… best night’s sleep while camping EVER.
