Starting location: Leo Carrillo State Park, Malibu CA – 58 degrees
Ending location: Morro Strand State Beach, Morro, CA – 62 degrees; 2 nights
Miles: 167 miles
Major Stops: Santa Barbara Mission
Hikes: Around the campground and Beach, To the downtown dog park
Weather: Partly Sunny, Highs low 60’s, lows in the upper 40’s.
Santa Barbara Mission
Leaving behind Leo Carrillo State Park, we headed north on US 1 to the Santa Barbara Mission. This is another of the missions that form the El Camino Real. The tour route is rather opaque as you start in the gardens and are not sure if you are really in the main church or not. Mostly, this is because this church’s altar is so different from San Juan Capistrano.
Los Padres National Forest
After a simple lunch in the parking lot of the mission, we turned Clarice towards our spot for the next two nights, heading north again but first we had to cross the Los Padres National Forest mountain pass.
RV Leveling
Sally took this next picture and it’s not something I would have thought to share, but realizing she thought it interesting, I am sharing it. 99.9% of campsites are not level. Many larger RV’s have automatic leveling jacks, but not Clarice. Normally, I do not bother to level as I can stand most of the sites I’ve been in as long as my head is upward when I sleep. I also have a fridge which can be out of level and still work. That is not true with all refrigerators. However, now with Sally on board sleeping the opposite direction I do, I wanted to be as level as possible for her comfort. So, I pulled out the Truma app which has a leveling tool to assess where the blocks need to go. Sally’s picture shows us the levelest we ever were and it was at Morro Strand!
referred to as the Lego’s in Clarice.
Morro Strand Beach State Park
Morro Strand Beach is a real beach camping experience. California takes what most other states would call a parking lot, and turns it into a “campground”. What it lacks in ambiance, it makes up by being as close to the beach as you can get. Believe it or not, I have no pictures of the site, but here are some beach pictures.
We had a very enjoyable 2 nights here.
On our full day, Sally did some work as we had cell signal; and Dottie and I walked over to the dog park in town. Sadly, she was the only dog there for quite a while, but then two other dogs entered the park while I was talking to Victoria, and it did not go well with a bit of growling back and forth. We decided then to call it a day and headed back to the campground.
We went to Morro 🏖 in 2017. I just loved it there! The sand dollars on the beach are cool!
It was a beautiful time on the beach! So glad you got to experience it, too!
So enjoying your amazing photos and the magic of your journey! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks, Ellen! Loving to share the journey!
I hear it will be warm this weekend! Hope my Michigan friends are all enjoying the spring there!