Stuck in the Sand

Last week we took the Jupiter Too up to Solvang, the quaint little Scandinavian town on California's central coast.

Other than eating pancakes (very, very good pancakes) and looking at European kitsch, there's not a whole lot to do there, so we also spent some time exploring nearby areas.

One afternoon we found ourselves at Pismo Beach, the only beach in California where you can drive on the sand. I didn't really get the appeal: Why would we want to drive on the sand? Moreover, why would one want to be on a beach where others were driving on the sand? But Steve wanted to try it out just to say he did it, so I went along for the ride, so to speak.

It actually was kind of neat. It was also unbelievably windy.

We drove near the waterline on the wettish, compact sand until we got to the end of the vehicle area. At that point we got out and snapped a photo.



About 30 seconds after Steve took that photo, the wind ripped that frisbee-like thing out of Elias's hands (or so he claims). It spun like a wheel on that yellow outer rim and rolled away past the "No Vehicles Permitted" sign. We told Elias sorry, it's gone. But he started crying, which is unusual for him. Luckily the frisbee-thing then lodged itself against a fence just outside the vehicle area, so Steve said he'd go get it.

Since we had to get back in the truck anyway and because it was so windy, we drove the 200 or so feet over to the fence rather than walking. Steve retrieved the toy then got back in and...discovered we were stuck.

I told him to put it in reverse because I know in snow you're supposed to rock back and forth. But snow tends to compact whereas sand tends to bury you deeper, plus the truck wasn't moving in any direction. Steve got out and discovered the sand was up to the running boards, thanks in part to the powderiness of being farther from the water and in part from the wind blowing so much of it against the tires just in the short time we were stopped.

Steve got out to contemplate our situation while I googled "vehicle stuck in sand." About then, a guy in a red pickup truck came driving up and started talking to Steve. The guy--who turned out to be a firefighter, too--told Steve the same thing I had just discovered in an eHow article: We needed to let air out of the tires.

So Steve let air out of our two front tires and the guy hitched us up to his truck. A minute later and we were back on the compact sand, and we had learned a valuable lesson.

Now that we know how we're supposed to drive on sand, we might even go back sometime...with the trailer! (They allow camping on the beach, too.)

As for the other stuff we did:

I found an absolutely awesome playground not far from the touristy section of Solvang. It had amazing wooden play structures, misting stations (though it was too cool to need them), swings, slides, a pristine baseball diamond, etc.







In Arroyo Grande (about an hour from Solvang) we went to a great ice cream place called Doc Burnstein's. They had some really neat flavors, like a coffee ice cream with ground-up espresso beans, Birthday Cake (Anna had that--and it did taste exactly like birthday cake), Merlot, and the one I liked most: Marzipan!

Also, while our truck might have been stuck in the sand, at least our heads weren't! Yeah, that's a really lame segue into the other highlight of our trip: feeding ostriches and emus at an ostrich farm.



Here's video of Steve feeding the ostriches. (The kids each fed the emus instead, because they were a little more tame. The emus, that is, not the kids.)

Our campground was really nice, too. Lots and lots of grass for the kids to play in.



The only downside is that it was so windy we couldn't have a campfire any of the nights we were there, which meant no s'mores and no pie-iron pies (more on that another time).

Lost in Space

Once we bought the new trailer, we were itching to take it out, especially with summer (and all of its heat and crowds) fast approaching.

So a week later, we found ourselves on our first trip.

Before I go into details, though, I want to announce that the Airstream officially has its name: Jupiter Too.

See, we somehow got Elias turned on to the old campy show "Lost in Space." The family lived on a spaceship called the Jupiter 2, and I thought that since the Airstream has a space-age, retro look to it, we could play off of that. I suggested Jupiter 3, but when Steve suggested Jupiter Too, I knew we had a winner.

But back to the trip.

Since we didn't have much time to prepare, we kept it local, going to a nearby state beach. There were no hookups, so we had to be careful about battery and water usage. We wound up using the showers at the campground, in part because of our limited water supply (and whopping six-gallon water heater) and in part because we discovered the trailer didn't come with a shower head.

The kids enjoyed the beach. Well--Elias enjoyed the beach. Anna seemed perplexed by the whole thing. She refused to sit in the sand and it took her a long time to even play in it.



At first I thought she had inherited my aversion to sand, but then I realized it was my aversion to sand that had kept her from ever experiencing a sandbox (yes, I'm a terrible mom), and therefore she had no idea what the stuff was.

Elias, on the other hand, had no such issues.



So while Elias rolled in the surf Anna found happiness lounging in a chair, and I can't say I blame her.



We grilled hot dogs and made s'mores. Elias befriended every kid in the park. We gathered 'round the table and played games by the glow of some really bitchin' overhead LED lights. It was a lot of fun, despite the freight trains that roared by several times a night.

We enjoyed it so much that we have two more trips planned (to different campgrounds) over the next few weeks. We're even hoping to squeeze in a few trips over the summer, and Steve is already planning how soon we can get out there once the new baby is born.

Before I go, one parting photo of my kidlets, snug in their jammies looking out into the wilderness. (Well, not quite wilderness, but some grass at least.)