Our Camping Trip To Sunset State Beach ~ A Photo Essay~

Photo Essay Contest.  It's become a tradition, our yearly campout to Sunset State Beach in Watsonville, CA  We've been doing it now for the past 8 years.  We love it there, it's a guaranteed break from the heat.   It's almost always fogged in and cool.... it's great and it's so beautiful!  The first thing we do when we get there is find our spot and set up camp.                                                                                                                                   

We got campsite #25 this year, it is the only campsite where you can see and hear the ocean very clearly.  The site was a little smaller than the ones we have gotten before but I thought it was great!  The girls thought it was too small.

 The Purple tent is mine.

We all had our own tents! So there ended up being 4 tents on the site by the time they were all up!  We had a regular tent City! :-)   (We also brought a friend of the family with us.)

After we got settled in I started a fire and made dinner.  We had a Bar-B-Q

 My granddaughter Ashley warming herself by the campfire. 

After we were settled in I decided to go exploring with my camera on the hill above our campsite.  I found FLOWERS.... yeahhhh you know me and flowers!

These are Yellow Bush Lupine

I found Poppies!

I even found a huge Bumble Bee taking a rest on a Poppy!

We had some "Excitement"..... my keys were accidently locked inside my car and we had to call AAA to get them out!  My granddaughter accidently locked up the car after she got something out of it not knowing that the keys were still in the ignition!  OH WELL...... LOL  Some excitment huh????

AAA to the rescue!

Sunset Beach is named after the beautiful sunsets you can see there..... if it's not foggy!  It was pretty foggy, but we were able to catch a little of the sunset on Tuesday Night.

YUMMMMMM Smore any one?

Stephanie enjoying a Smore!  It's not a camping trip without Smores don't you agree?

There were these crazy little birds there that were really tiny.  They loved the pine trees and you knew when they were in the tree, very noisey  They were in the tree, on the tree, running up and down the trunk of the tree, even some of them were upside down in the tree. Very strange little birds.  They are called Pygmy Nuthatch and they lived up to the "Nut" part of their name! LOL..

Pygmy Nuthatch

The light captures the beautiful Sparkle of the Ocean.  Isn't it just beautiful?

The Ocean catches the sunshine and sparkles!

This is the sight we saw on Wednesday night.  The Rays coming down through the clouds and shining on the water was spectacular!  Isn't it just gorgeous? 

Such a wonderful sight for us to behold the last night we camped! 

Our camping trip this year went much too fast.... We're already making plans for next year's trip.... we may extend it for another day.     Loved getting away, camping, exploring the ocean and the dunes, taking photos and just relaxing!  It's just the right thing to do! 

All photos taken by Trudy P (Panasonic FZ7 Digital Camera)