After spending two weeks at mom’s house visiting, restocking and taking care of a small list of maintenance items on both our rigs we had decided to spend some time before Christmas in the California desert.
As usual we have been closely monitoring the forecast to determine the optimum weather opportunities for the pups and us.

The bad news… its going to rain in the southwest

The good news…. its going to rain in the southwest.

As we all know the west coast and especially California is currently in the middle of a record breaking drought. Any precipitation is more than welcome and is badly needed for its parched landscape.

Last week locals were estatic when some 2-3 inches fell over the southland and the Sierras received some snow. Currently the forecast shows an even bigger storm headed our way in the next few days.

Our desert destination choices had been varied and many.
We considered:
-Death Valley where we could camp surrounded by some of the most arid landscape in America or….
-Mojave National Preserve with its historic Kelso train station and huge Kelso sand dunes to play in or….
-Joshua Tree NP where you can camp surrounded by massive piles of boulders and millions of stars at night or….
-Anza Borrego State Park where the wild flowers color the landscape and slot canyons provide great exploring and wild camping opportunities.

Unfortunately all of these locations are currently forecasted for heavy rain with flash flood advisories in effect.

The obvious downside to heading into the desert during a storm of this magnitude would be traveling on very wet freeways alongside Calif drivers that can’t seem to slow down and camping for the next few days in active flash flood zones.

Camping in these kinds of situations were never on our “to do” list while in SoCal.

So it now seems that we must remain flexible, change plans and instead of venturing into the desert stay local and wait out these next storms. We will do this by moving just 30 miles from mom’s house in Thousand Oaks to the Ventura County Rincon Parkway campground.

http://www.ventura.org/beach-front-parks/rincon-parkway

This is roadside camping at its finest. Situated along a beautiful stretch of hwy. 1 literally a few feet from the pounding surf and across the road from the Southern Pacific north/south rail line. This place is about as close to camping on the beach as you can get.

The forecast gave us two days before the high surf and blowing rain was due so we made the move. The Rincon is situated just north of Emma Wood State Beach where you can also camp along the old 1920’s concrete section of hwy. It costs a little more but has a little less hwy noise.

While walking the dogs and watching the surfers along a more remote section of Emma Wood SB we came across an area where an out of work artist decided to live on the beach for a while and stack rocks. The results of his work is simply amazing.

Yes we are very happy for all Californians and their pending wet weather but…. we remain vigilant in our quest for sunnier conditions and soon hope to be basking in the desert sun. We should be headed east very soon
Remember to stay balanced in life and remain flexible…

keep you posted…..

To fully enjoy the two panorama photos below click to open them then pan left or right to get the full effect.