Jalama Beach, CA - Nov 2006

Wow -- what a view! We had read about the magnificent views at Jalama Beach County Park, but you never know for sure until you see it with your own eyes. We were pleased to find the view even better than we expected. We arrived on the Sunday after Thanksgiving assuming that the holiday crowds would have thinned out and that we wouldn't have a problem getting a view site. We did manage to score a great site even though there were more people here than we expected. Most however, departed by Monday and our upper view row had only 4 other campers by Tuesday.

The park itself was pretty nice. The facilities were a little on the run down side and spaces were very close together, but the view was so worth it. The campsites that were up on the bluff (on the far right in this photo) were our favorites, but there were several nice ones right on the beach that would have been tempting if they had electrical hookups. Since we'd just spent 5 days dry camping we were eager to be back on grid and enjoy all our electronic toys.

The beach was lovely and was long enough for some nice beach walks and wide enough that I was able to fly my kites. One of my favorite new toys is my Trilby Kite. I used to fly one of these very colorful, set of three, stacked, stunt kites when we used to vacation at South Padre Island on the Texas gulf coast. The bright colors and long tails made a lovely and graceful image against the blue sky. Plus, their lightweight construction made them easy to fly in even low wind conditions. After 10 years of use and abuse my original set finally disintegrated and I threw them away. Now, some 15 years later, I got the kite bug again and looked at lots of the newer stunt kites and even bought a really fast and snappy one, but I still really missed my Trilby kite. An online search produced the sad news that the Trilby company went out of business, but a search on E-Bay uncovered a stash of still new-in-the-bag Trilby kites, so I got a set of three and an additional back-up set just in case I damage one. After 15 years, the skills to do tricks and stunts came back rather quickly.

Scotty seemed to like our new spot, but Rudy was very afraid of something outdoors and didn't want to go outside at all. We guessed that maybe the sound of the waves frightened him as he couldn't see where it was coming from. The last time we had Rudy on the beach was at Winchester Bay in Oregon. We let him run off leash and he got scared (again, we're not sure why, but maybe the sound of the waves) -- anyway he took off heading back towards the parking lot but got lost in the dunes. We went after him calling and calling and he finally found us and seemed to be in panic mode, so we're guessing that he might now be afraid of the beach in general. But sometimes you just never know what dogs are thinking.

Oh the sunsets......absolutely stunning and made even more spectacular from our high up perch. Way offshore were several oil rig platforms -- huge structures that appeared to be several stories tall. At night they were all lit up and with the moisture in the atmosphere they appeared to twinkle. It was pretty -- looked like Christmas lights. The sound of the waves was wonderful and it was warm enough to have a window open to enjoy it. There were lots of shore birds to watch -- gulls, pelicans and sand pipers. The other wildlife included quails, rabbits, squirrels and supposidly wild pigs (we didn't see any). We watched as dolphins frolicked just beyond the breakers and we even saw a couple of sea lions swimming about.