Camping in the Big Sur

I can't even begin to express how much fun we had camping at the Big Sur! It has been the best camping trip I've ever taken, so far. I had spent Friday and Saturday, unpacking, cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and repacking for this trip, which by the way, it's exhausting, and I wasn't sure if it was worth all that work...but it was, of course. Sunday after church, we loaded the car and headed down Route 1 with the Carter family. We arrived to our destination. Pfeiffer State Park. We unloaded the car, set up our tent, and started making dinner. In the mean time, Ellie and Arden played and explored their surroundings, while Abbey and I bundled up ourselves, and the babies...and went to get some wood.


While we were preparing dinner, our friends, Travis and Will showed up (father and son). Ellie and Arden immediately befriended Will and continued to have a great time. We had a delicious feast! Carne asada, tortillas, corn, zucchini, hot dogs...yep, we like to feast when we camp. After our feast, we roasted marshmallows and then after our children were exhausted, we put them down for the evening...I must mention that all of the children went down very late in the evening and were pretty grumpy the following day.


It was cold, so our little family all slept very bundled up, in the same bed. (see pic of Mayita)
The following morning, after getting dressed and eating breakfast, and packing our lunches...(there are no drive thrus on this part of Route 1) we went to Julia PepperState Park, where we enjoyed this beautiful view...of the ocean and the waterfall.
We also hiked around and as you can see, even though our children were tired, they were still having a great time. On our way back, we stopped by the side of the road, since I thought I saw dolphins or whales...I'm still not sure what we saw...Newel thinks it was a bunch of rocks in the water...I still think, it might have been whales.


After visiting the state park, we headed back to our camp site. All of us, took really long naps and re-energized ourselves...the naps were very much needed.





Now, this is my favorite part of the entire trip. After our naps...and much less grumpy children, we went to Andrew Molera State Park. This was a totally amazing hike. It started by hiking through bushes, crossed a little bridge, followed by tall trees, then an open field where we saw some wild life. Then entered the woods, to less tall trees, but the river ran along the trail...the river was clear and beautiful. Then, the trail split. First, we went to the rock beach (see pic), but we couldn't cross the river because it was too cold, and we didn't want to get wet. Then, we went to the other side of the trail and the view was amazing (pic below).

We watched the sunset, enjoyed a small snack and headed back to the campsite. By this time, the children were tired, but still content... We had another delicious feast, and enjoyed some delicious smores. It was really cute...Will, didn't want any smores...but he wanted "some more" marshmallows. Arden showed him how to indulge into a smore...Will eventually tried it and liked it. I didn't think I liked smores, it turns out I do. I finally figured out how to make the perfect smore for myself...use less chocolate pieces.

The chilren watching the sunset...Ellie and Arden holding hands on the way back from our hike.

Arden enjoying his smore

The kids had so much fun, they wouldn't let us pack the following day. They kept going from tent to tent, screaming and jumping inside the tents. It was really funny...Finally, Newel gave up on the idea of taking down the tent, and went on a mini hike with them, where they found rollie-pollies. We all had a great time and were very dirty when we got home.