Long and Short of It

We are so thankful this year to have been able to take up once again our Thanksgiving tradition of camping at Pismo. It was just a few weeks before our planned trip last year that David had his stroke. Instead of being in Pismo on Thanksgiving Day, David was wheeled into church in a wheelchair. The picture above was posted to contrast that with the wheels he has this year!Our campsite was beautiful - lots of neat flora and fauna - lots of good times!This woodpecker sure had a smart idea for getting water! His home was in a tree just above this faucet.The butterflies are always migrating through this area at this time of year. They love the eucalyptus, and when their wings are closed they are quite well camouflaged. What could be better than a campfire?Jacob improvised a way to read even in the dark! He is really enjoying the Pendragon series - can't stop reading!The boys love the beach and the dunes. Caleb was fully immersed as often as possible - the only person on the beach IN the water! Apparently Caleb also likes being immersed in sand! We took a side trip to Cambria on our way home - to look for cool rocks! Until next year!

Our trip was shorter than usual and shorter than we would have liked, BUT it was longer than it might have been. Pismo is such a popular place to camp at Thanksgiving that you need to get reservations well in advance (7 months in advance!). We could not do that this year since we didn't know if David would be able to do this, so we took our chances and went without reservations in the hopes someone had canceled theirs and we could get in. David and Caleb left EARLY Wednesday morning, but what should have been a 4-hour drive became a 7-hour drive due to holiday traffic and accidents. When they pulled in there was ONE site left, and we had to go on a day-by-day basis - hoping each day a cancelation would occur so we could keep our site. When Caleb and David arrived it was pouring, and all the sites were filled not just with puddles but with ponds! They did set up camp, though, even knowing they might have to take it down the next morning! Anthony and Jacob and I left mid-afternoon, after school got out for them, and for us too it was nearly a 7-hour trip - same reasons - different accident. David got up early Thanksgiving morning, and we were able to give thanks that we could have the campsite yet that day and night. We were hoping to stay on, but the next morning the news was different, so we only got one full day to camp. But, as you can see from the photos above all of this was all well-worth it!