Spring Training Trip - Day 9

The weather was great again today – a little cooler, but mostly sunny and not very windy.  After breakfast, we left Point Mugu and headed south along Highway 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway) to Santa Monica and then through LA to Camp Pendleton, a  U.S. Marine base on the coast between LA and San Diego, that has an RV park right on the beach.  Traffic through LA was hectic, but moved quickly with few delays.  (It was Saturday and we were avoiding rush hour.)  Pat only got “the finger” from one driver, a female who obviously did not want a big RV in her way.

We found Camp Pendleton easily with the GPS and, after working our way around a closed road, arrived at the campground, right on the beach as advertised.  From our site we can see waves breaking on the shore on 3 sides of the RV.  After lunch, we walked south on the beach, which has areas open to both swimming and surfing, down to San Onofre State Beach which directly adjoins the north end of Camp Pendleton.  There is a sign there on the boundary fence between the two beaches which states that “civilians” may pass through but have to stay below the high tide area. We walked as far as the San Onofre nuclear power plant (one of three still operating in California) which is just south of the state beach. The main part of the base is not here by the beach; it is across the highway up in the hills and has all of the regular base security you would expect from a working military installation. The coastal area of the base where the Marines practice military maneuvers is further south and access to the beach in those areas is restricted to the public.

We had a great walk on the beach.  It was fun watching the surfers – they really had to work at getting far enough out to catch a wave because the sand is strewn with many fairly large rocks.  We watched the sunset, ate dinner in the RV and are looking forward to San Diego tomorrow and meeting up with Susan & Dick and Dennis and Julie.

Day 9 Pictures