Dana Point x3

With summer almost over and kids back to school, it's much easier to find some beach camping (at least on a weekday). I really dislike the idea of paying $8 simply to reserve a campsite and after checking reserve America's website for availability, we decided to take our chances on getting a beach campsite. Here is the family (minus me) getting geared up and excited about our one day trip.

Dana Point (Doheny State Beach) is one of our favorite places to camp mainly because it's right on the beach and has some great surf for my wife to get her body boarding fix. The procedure for securing last minute beach camping is to arrive at the campground before noon and ask the park aide if there are any open spots for the night. If there are more people waiting than spots available, they give you a number and if your number is called, then you can pick an available spot. We "won" one of three available spots and after paying our $35, set up camp. If you get a friendly employee, they sometimes even let you set up right away as opposed to waiting till 2pm which is the posted check-in time.
We managed to get a pretty nice spot close to the ocean.

I have to remind myself every once in a while how lucky we are to have such amazing weather in California and this day was no different. My wife quickly went off to do what she loves (body boarding) and I decided to stay in the van to finish my book.

This was also nap time so a perfect opportunity to try out our new super comfortable Rumpl blanket (thanks uncle Mark, auntie Kaci, and baby K)

Then we had to get our money's worth with more beautiful beach time.

The evening brought us a stunning sunset while we ate burgers cooked over the fire.

Although this was just a quick one day trip, it's always great to get some quality adventure time. On the drive back home I had my excellent navigators assisting with the directions.....till next time!