Camping at Pismo Beach

A couple of weekends ago, John and I drove down to Pismo, CA to go camping on the beach for the weekend.  We met up with some friends Jenna and Mike.  Jenna and I have been friends since Jr. High (oh how time flies!), and Jenna and Mike got married a few months before John and I.  We also met up with one of John’s friends from college, Rob.  He and John were roommates at Purdue, and Rob recently moved out to CA, so we were very excited that we could all spend a whole weekend together!

It turned out to be a small adventure for everyone.  I was the only one that had previously been camping in Pismo – for those who haven’t been, it is actual beach camping...tent on the beach = sand everywhere for weeks afterwards.  When we first got to the beach, it was a little bit of a shock.  There were miles of RVs and Campers and huge trucks oh my!  Even I was not expecting that.  When I had gone previously, it was while I was in college, and it was during the school year.  There were a few tents, but nothing to write home about.  This…was a whole ‘nother world.  We were finally able to find a little spot on the beach nestled back in between some RVs where we could set up our tent.  Lucky for us, the wind decided to pick up, and the sun started to set as we (John, Rob and I) attempted to set up a rather large, 3 room tent…with no instructions.  It was quite the fiasco as you can imagine.  But…in the end, we managed to get it standing minus two extra poles (those were optional…right?!) and by miracle, it stayed standing all weekend!

A little later Jenna and Mike arrived, and we were able to get our relaxing beach camping weekend started.  We cooked over the bonfire (we had to get creative on this one), danced to some Katy Perry (courtesy of Rob), made smores, played some corn hole (also courtesy of Rob…Girls 3, Boys 0!!!),  watched the sunset over the ocean, and rented some ATVs to drive around the dunes for a few hours on Saturday.  The dunes are beautiful, my pictures with my little ‘point and shoot’ don’t do them justice.  Riding the ATVs was a really fun experience!

All in all it was a really great weekend (minus the 'hike' to the nasty port-a-potties) and I’m so glad we could get together with some amazing friends that we don’t get to see often enough!