Dog Days

So at least it was an improvement over my last car camp experience a week or so ago in southern California. This time I had two dogs jammed into my little Subaru Crosstrek for the voyage from the central coast of California to San Diego. Along for the ride was my mutt sidekick Cosmo, and Levi, a long haired mini dachshund. He was on his way back to his Mommy, my youngest daughter, after a brief pet sit/doggy adventure.

Along the way to our campsite at Refugio State Beach, I picked up a container of to-go split pea soup from the Pea Soup Anderson’s restaurant in Buellton. The soup was in a styrofoam cup. I feel bad about the take-out waste. My next car camping challenge is to figure out how to do some simple cooking or reheating. 

When I was in the outdoor adventure store (no not REI) in San Luis Obispo getting my cargo carrier, I saw some sort of battery device that you can power your phone or lap top or a few basic electrical devices. They were in various sizes and prices based on their capabilities. It was going to be in the neighborhood of a few hundred dollars for one of the smaller ones. It is something I plan to research next. I want to explore the solar option too. I have an induction hot plate cook top in our guest apartment. I am seeing some future simple meal possibilities. Or maybe a portable BBQ grill. Right now I have been having to heat my coffee water with a travel water heating device that plugs into the cigarette lighter port in my Subie. 

A few minutes later we check in at Refugio and I drive us to our site. The park has a mid century vibe to it. There are tall palm trees like out of Gilligan’s Island. And of course aqua-colored lifeguard towers. There is also an old swing set that my girls swung on during family trips to visit my family in northern California, when we lived near San Diego. There are kids everywhere. The dogs and I have a nice snippet of ocean view between the trucks and trailers and tents.

I need to eat the soup right away since I have no way to reheat it. I get out the kitchen camp box and realize I forgot to replenish the dishes from when I washed them at home after the last trip. I guess it was good I had the styrofoam cup after all. We had house guests who stayed an extra day when I was getting ready to leave, and I was scrambling at the end to pack. Another note to self. I am 61. I need to always work from a list.

There is some traffic noise from Highway 101, as I enjoy my soup and feed the dogs. That was to be expected. What I forgot about was generators. Someone started one up in the giant fancy RV next to us. I dream of one day camping in a more rustic primitive setting. But I am not set up for that yet. Something to aspire to.

About 12 years ago when I was still a supervising park ranger, I applied for a Sector Superintendent position. It would have been a promotion. This little gem of a state park was part of that sector. I had spent time at it interviewing employees and touring around the area. I was informed a couple of days later that I had came close but was not selected. Instead I had to retire not too long after applying, from the health effects after a bad bout of Lyme Disease. Or at least my body’s overreaction to battling it. But hey at least now I was able to get a campsite online. 

After I finish my soup and my minimalist campsite prep, I give in to the urge to check my phone. One of my sisters had texted that a body had been found in Wyoming that was most likely Gabby Petito’s. Bad news reaches everywhere. She was so young at 22, and excited and optimistic about traveling and exploring nature. Her life and her ambitions should not have been stolen from her. I think about the Dateline podcast I had listened to on the way down. “The Secrets of Spirit Lake”. About a smart, caring, driven woman named Lissa Yellow Bird. She has dedicated herself to searching for missing and murdered Native American women. In the haunting episode, she was searching for her own missing niece. I am grateful more attention is being brought to these often neglected and unsolved cases of missing and murdered women, often at the hands of their partners. 

As a park ranger and in life, I have encountered plenty of cold, manipulative, disordered people. I have also attempted to help plenty of scared and hurting teenage girls and women. I have been there myself. As I am sure my two daughters have at times. I am grateful we all made it to the other side. And that they are in secure loving relationships currently. 

I know I have an addiction to my cellphone, so I have to “consciously uncouple” from it for little periods of time. I stash it and take the lads on a sunset walk along a paved bike trail. We watch an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train go by. I saw so many non electronic activities going on in the campground and park as we walked. It heartened me. There was Frisbee, catch, scooter and bike riding, and stand up paddle boarding in the cove. There are people setting up pup tents, who are traveling by bikes. I am glad cellphones weren’t around during my childhood.

I see couples sitting side by side watching the waves or the sky change and it saddens me, and I have to look away. It hurts that my husband who is 23 years older than me, does not like to camp or travel much. And that he is not good at letting the little annoying things that happen when you travel go unnoticed or at least unremarked upon. He used to be a supervising lifeguard for California State Parks. He talks fondly about his surf camping trips to Baja with other lifeguards and sometimes family and friends when he was younger. He has wonderful stories from those trips. But he does not seem interested in making new camping memories.

As he ages he seems to get more fixated on keeping to his routine. Plus I have made our pretty and safe little cottage in our pretty and safe little town quite comfortable. Almost too comfortable. It’s easy for the brain to say, Why ever leave?

I joke that as we age it becomes more like dog years. About seven years to every one. He has some good traits, so it looks like I am going solo on journeys until I can get another friend or family member to come along. 

As I age I instead feel an urgency to live life more fully and spontaneously. I guess kind of like a dog does. To focus more on time and experiences with friends and family. At least as much as I reasonably can during these Covid precautionary times and my health issues will let me.

Back at our campsite, I struggle with putting up my changing tent. I had not remembered to bring a hammer for the tent stakes. A large rock isn’t a strong enough substitute to pound them into the hard ground. I do my best to tie it to the front and a side of the car, and put what rocks I could find in the corners. A wind kicks up, and I doubt it will hold.

I give up and walk the dogs back to the beach area to watch the harvest moon rise over the palm trees. The dogs are not allowed on the beach. We get as close as we legally can. Out at sea, the red and white lights on the the offshore oil platforms looked pretty if you didn’t know what they were. In 2015 there was a crude oil pipeline rupture in from one of the platforms that caused massive environmental damage in the area.

Back at our campsite, a thought occurred to me as I tightly held on to my toothbrush and walked to the bathroom. Why do I not mind being challenged camping, when life is challenging enough? Ah, because they are easily overcome challenges, I tell myself. There may be some inconveniences and snafus that arise, but I hope I stay relatively healthy long enough to set out again and again, learning and improving on the experiences each time. That the next trip will be more comfortable and interesting. Camping optimism. “Just you wait and see,” I tell the dogs. 

I lie down in my car bed inside my Subaru around 10 with the dogs at my side and feet. Unlike my last car camping stint a week before, there was no shouting, swearing voices in the night. I smell a mixture of sewage and campfire smoke through the open sunroof and partially opened windows. The wind is swirling around outside. My changing tent is now on it’s side and flapping noisily against the hood of the car.

The smoke makes me think of the wildfires burning in Sequoia National Forest at the time. On the way down, I had heard that firefighters were wrapping fire-resistant foil around the bases of the giant sequoias in the General Sherman grove. At the time, they were still okay. I am pulling for them.

Around midnight the wind settles down, and the traffic noise is mostly replaced by the lull of the waves. 

The next morning after I finished eating my cereal out of a travel mug, I see a middle-aged woman approaching our campsite.

“You remind me so much of my sister-in-law,” she said. “She’s very independent and adventurous and this is like something she would do.” She smiles when she says it. I take it as a compliment. It doesn’t seem particularly brave, but I like that she sees it that way. And that she takes the time to acknowledge and uplift another woman. We chat for a couple of minutes and she walks back to her site with other people in it.

I’m gonna say overall me and the dogs had a good time. We’re not finished yet.