Seacliff (5)

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off in terms of covering the miles to line us up for this stop, but it was worth a long day and a fight to make this “crazy idea” a reality for our last night of winter break. Because we didn’t have too far to travel, we were able to get to the area with plenty of day left to dump at New Brighton, and then get a released site at Seacliff. If you haven’t ever tried to reserve this campground online, it is next to impossible to click fast enough to actually grab a site before one of the other thirty-nine million people trying for it beat you out. A better bet is to monitor cancellations. And the third way was new to me. Apparently, there are often sites that have been cancelled that get released at exactly 2:00 on the day. You can put your name on a waiting list, and depending on how many they have, and how many people are there on the list, you just might get lucky. Was it a gamble to think we’d get a place on the coast with no reservations? For sure. But it turned out there were plenty of sites getting released at both Seacliff and at New Brighton. We were doing a happy dance as we set up in the same place we started from, two weeks before.

I got to bask in extra awesome 5g while Richard did get to go on his bike ride after all. I got an IEP written so I wouldn’t be stressed getting back to work on Tuesday, and he got an eclair at Gayle’s Bakery. He also brought one back for me.

There isn’t much more to say about the fun factor of Seacliff, except this time we saw something weird in the sky during sunset viewing time. I wonder if it might be from a small meteorite because the vapor trail is so strange. If you look at the pictures, you can see how the vapor disperses into a spiral pattern. And you can see it begin, in one of the reflection shots, from above. We didn’t really notice it until it grew into a clear helix shape. Before then, it just looked like a vapor trail. Then I looked back at all the photos I’d taken and saw that it was there! I thought it was pretty cool, regardless of what created it. Maybe there is new technology out there that will let you create pretty sunset clouds. I’d buy that.

We had the best time, defrosting, un-dampening, and loving our last night of winter break. There was a walk to ice cream in the evening, of course, and we watched “Don’t Look Up,” for our nighttime entertainment. That was great. There is nothing better than waking up to that morning view of the waves, right in front of you. Meanwhile, it’s toasty warm inside and you can sip your latte and just stare. Of course, lots of people stare back, without realizing you are looking at them. But that is also fun.

We had a super great time in the desert. Of course, the highlight was meeting up with Francois. We saw some amazing rocks and some cool wildlife. We hit freezing temps and high winds a few times, but do not seem to be any the worse for wear. All in all, this was a perfect farewell to 2021 and a positive ushering in of 2022. This year’s first lesson is to take care when speaking words and notice when they are coming from a place of anxiety. If we can learn to say, “I’m feeling anxious” instead of some of the things we say instead, or at least get there a little sooner, that would be a very positive thing.

Total miles: 156.3 from Cerro Alto, 17.1 mpg, 3 hours 10 min. Site B3. No hookups. Excellent cell for both. Park very strict about being fully self contained – like they will ask you to prove you have a black tank and know how to dump it. Can only guess what horrors have transpired to bring about that level of scrutiny.