Week 10: Let’s Go to the Beach

I was really excited for this week - not necessarily because I’m a city gal, but because I was excited for the coast and to be close to the beach. This week looked quite a bit different than when we’ve stayed near parks which was nice for a change. Part of the reason I was so excited for this week was because we were staying at a paid campground complete with showers, water, dump station, flushing toilets, etc.

So let me take you back to Sunday. Sunday morning we began our drive from Anza Borrego State Park to the coast. Our plan was to head towards Oceanside, CA (a northern suburb of San Diego) and drive along the coast up towards Los Angeles. When we started our drive we noticed our tire pressure light had come on again. I think we have a little bit of PTSD when this light comes on. We checked the tires and Trevor saw a spot where air was slowly leaking on one of our front tires. Our front tires have been extremely worn down and we were very past due to get new tires. So we decided we would try to make it to Oceanside, a two hour drive, and get all new tires there. Thankfully the tire held up well on the drive to Oceanside. The two hour drive was beautiful. We drove through the mountains and quickly saw a transition from the desert landscape we’ve experienced most of the trip to lush green meadows. There were beautiful colorful flowers blooming and lakes. We really enjoyed the drive! (Side note: we saw a little stand on the side of the road that said 20 avocados for $5! We didn’t stop but we really regret it now.) We made it to Oceanside and dropped the van off to get new tires. Thankfully, Oceanside was actually a great place to be without the van. We walked to a local restaurant to get some lunch and then walked to the pier. We walked along the pier until it started sprinkling so we headed to Starbucks to get a warm drink. Our van was ready with brand new tires and we are hopeful that that is the end of our tire issues! After leaving Oceanside we had a two hour drive to Los Angeles. We knew we had a few hours of daylight left when we made it to Los Angeles so we made our way to Griffith Park and Observatory. We were able to see the Hollywood sign and did a short hike to get a closer view of the sign and a very cool overlook of LA. We briefly walked through the observatory but it was very busy so we didn’t spend a lot of time in there. The sun set so we hopped in the van and headed to our campground.

Monday we worked and then headed just a few minutes down the road to the beach. This beach was super convenient in the van because we could park right along the beach. We hung out on the beach, made dinner in the van and had a little picnic on the beach to watch the sunset. It was so wonderful 😊 …And then we headed back to our campsite to see that some hooligans had stolen some things from us 😫. When we got back to the campsite, our camp chair and Starlink stand were sitting there. I asked Trevor if he had packed up our outdoor rug before we left. He said no. We looked around to see if it had blown away somewhere but couldn’t find it. Trevor, being the optimistic person he is, thought that an animal had carried it off. It’s a 4’x6’ rug and I thought it was very unlikely that had happened. The next morning as I was waking up it just came to my mind that we had left our little bamboo camp table out as well. I confirmed with Trevor that it had been outside and I told him I don’t think an animal carried off both of those things. It was frustrating that someone had stolen our things, but our Starlink stand and camp chair would have been a lot more inconvenient to lose and we would have lost a lot more money if those things had been taken. Our rug was only $15 and the camp table had been given to us for free so we weren’t out much money at all. Although, we had just bought that rug the week before and I was so happy to have it. It made our outdoor set up a little more homey, kept us from bringing as much dirt in the van, and was a nice setup for outdoor showers. We might find ourselves making our way back to Target soon to buy another one 😁.

Tuesday, we headed back to the beach again. This time we made sure to pack up everything before we left. We enjoyed laying out in the sun, watching the surfers, and again made dinner and ate it on the beach while the sun set.

Wednesday, we decided to take a break from the beach since I had gotten a little burnt the day before. We worked and just chilled at our campsite and of course watched The Amazing Race.

Thursday, we planned to work until lunch time and then head to a coffee shop near Newport Beach to finish our work. When we made it to the coffee shop the parking was full so we headed to a different one. The coffee shop was supposed to close in 30 minutes so we gave up on working more that day. After the coffee shop, we wanted to go to Newport Beach but the parking was $10 so we gave up on that idea. We went and got some groceries and then tried Cava for the first time for dinner. Cava is a popular Mediterranean chain restaurant but there aren’t any locations in Ohio so I was excited to try it. I got their most popular bowl and it was a little too spicy for my liking. I don’t like spicy food so I don’t know why I thought I could handle this bowl. But the food was still good. We had a gift card for Coldstone so we went and got some ice cream. We got way too much so I’m thankful we have a small freezer in the van so we could save some ice cream for another day 😋.

Friday was a cloudy, chilly day so we caught up on work and then did some cleaning and organizing in the van. Our garage space at the back of the van under our bed had gotten really dirty and needed some organizing so we pulled everything out, cleaned it up and got it organized. We also did a little cleaning and organizing in the front. That night I decided to try the token showers at our campsite. We only had one $1 bill and the rest were bigger bills so I bought two tokens for the shower and decided I would make do with that. The sign in the shower said that each token gave you 3 minutes of running water. I thought surely I could get most of my showering done in 6 minutes. I think each token gave me at most 1.5 minutes of running water (and that’s probably generous). So I got the bottom half of my legs shaved with my two tokens and that’s it 😂. So I had to head back to the van and finish my shower.

Saturday we planned to spend the day in LA. Our drive to LA took us about 2.5 hours because there was so much traffic. LA traffic is not exaggerated! We drove first to Venice Beach. We found a parking lot along the beach that cost $12 for the day. We thought that wasn’t too bad so pulled up to pay. The lady said that since our van was over 8 feet tall it was considered an RV and was going to cost us $48 to park for the day. We were like no way! We drove about 2 minutes down the road and found street parking that cost us $12.50 for the day. We walked along the boardwalk of Venice Beach and went to Abbot Kinney Blvd to walk around and see the shops. Trevor was excited because he loves his Allbirds shoes. This was his first time going to a brick and mortar Allbirds store. While we were on Abbot Kinney Blvd, I recognized an actor that we walked by, Nat Faxon. He’s not a super well-known actor but we’ve seen a few shows with him in it. I felt like seeing an actor I recognized completed my LA experience 😊. We then walked back towards our van to the Santa Monica pier. We saw many interesting characters during all of our walking that day! We walked around all of the rides on the Santa Monica pier and then headed back to our campsite.

Sunday we decided to enjoy the beach for one last day. We spent the day relaxing before we headed towards our next campground halfway between LA and Death Valley.

This week Trevor and I had some really honest talks about our future in the van. Trevor is flexible, adventurous, chill, and down for anything…and I am basically the exact opposite 😬. He truly loves living in a van, and living in a van is more of just a means to an end for me – that end being seeing a lot of new and beautiful places. Going into van life, I knew this lifestyle would be challenging for me but I was hopeful that the moments I love would outweigh the moments I hate. So far, I don’t know if I can say that’s the case. But I’m not ready to give up yet. There are still so many places I want to see, and we still feel that we want to make the most of this opportunity we have – we know we are so blessed to be able to do this. We’ve talked through ways to make this lifestyle more enjoyable and less stressful for me, and Trevor has been so thoughtful and sweet in taking care of me when I have difficult days. So we will keep traveling away and take it day by day.

Knowing others are reading along and enjoying our journey through this blog truly makes this experience more enjoyable for me. Nobody wants to go through challenging and stressful times alone, and while we are out here alone, we still feel the community around us. Thanks for being here ❤️