With a couple of days off in the middle of the week for Veterans Day, we decided to take a short trip to the Pinnacles National Monument for some hiking, cave exploration and family fun time.

Pinnacles is a funny place. Driving up highway 25, the area seems unremarkable with a lot of farm and ranch land. Even when you turn off to the park area on highway 146, it just seems like there isn’t much there: Oak trees, grey pines and rolling hills. Ok. so why is this a national monument? Teddy Roosevelt made it one over 100 years ago for gosh sake.

When you get to the campground, there still isn’t much to look at. And right now the campground is in a state of renewal and repair. They are currently building a new RV campsite area in what is currently the group campsite area. They are also building a beautiful new wood rail fence along  the park road – I think they got some Obama money.

The rock formations of The Pinnacles National Monument

The yellow billed magpie

Having fun on the trail

But when you get to the hiking trails it all starts to make sense. When you look up at the rock formations, you’ve just got to say WOW at just about every turn on the hiking trail. It almost seems like you are in the Utah hills with the red rock formations that rise above you. Also the wild life is incredible. We saw tons of deer and an interesting bird, the yellow billed Magpie.

Once the new RV camp site is complete (probably by late spring), we will be coming back to enjoy the hiking trails and spring flowers.

One thing you should know is that there is no water hookup for the RV sites. As long as you bring your own water can to fill-up your tank (we have a six gallon one), you will be fine.

Below is a video of some deer that were grazing right by our campsite close to night fall on Nov. 12th.

This post via the: Family RV Fun blog. Where you can get tips, tricks and valuable info on family RV travel.

A Trip to the Pinnacles National Monument

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The below video is an example of what happens to your RV when you get bad (too high or too low voltage) power from the RV park. It isn’t pretty and it cost us $300 to fix it.

Get the surge protector mentioned in this video:Portable Surge Guard

This post via the: Family RV Fun blog. Where you can get tips, tricks and valuable info on family RV travel.

RV Accessories: Why You Should Use a Surge Protector

We had a really good time at the New Brighton State Beach park. The state park is located off of Highway 1 just outside of Capitola, CA.

It is a state park (though its not threatened of closing with the Cal budget crisis) sitting on the bluffs above the beach. We had power and water, but no sewer (there is a dump station at the entrance to the park).

A nice campground, though the sites were a little close together. The best sites, the ones with a great view of the ocean, don’t have power and cost extra ($10 more a night on top of the $35 a night).

New Brighton is one of the best camp sites you can stay at in the Cal state park system. It has a nice beach below the buffs and it is 10 minutes from the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk.

See the video for the highlights of our trip.

This post via the: Family RV Fun blog. Where you can get tips, tricks and valuable info on family RV travel.

Camping at New Brighton State Beach

Besides all the other comforts your RV provides, you probably want Internet access in your RV where ever you may be.

The below video gives a good basic overview of the options.

Cellular Internet access equipment mentioned in the above video.

This post via the: Family RV Fun blog. Where you can get tips, tricks and valuable info on family RV travel.

Getting Internet Access in Your RV

You may have heard of the budget problems with the state of California (my home-sweet-home). It seems we are $20 billion in the red.

Well the governor is proposing some prettry draconian measures with the State Park system. He wants to close up to 220 state parks with over 50 in Northern California alone.

This could mean that Big Basin State Park (one we plan on camping at this year) could be closing.

There is something we can do about it though. Go to the calparks.org web site and sign the petition to tell the govinator that we don’t want this.

photo credit: jeffk

This post via the: Family RV Fun blog. Where you can get tips, tricks and valuable info on family RV travel.

California Camping in Danger by State Budget

Every Thanksgiving holiday we go to Pismo Beach to spend the long weekend in the sun and fun of the beach.

Pismo is a great place for beach rv camping and November is their summer so there is always great weather.

They allow beach camping so there is always an armada of travel trailers and toy haulers that pay the fee to camp on the beach.

There is always an onshore wind, so what people do is they bring sheets of plywood to block the wind around their rig. It sounds junky, but it does work and creates a wind block for more comfort.
photo credit: bsterling

This post via the: Family RV Fun blog. Where you can get tips, tricks and valuable info on family RV travel.

Beach RV Camping

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