Campsite Ninjas

Noah and I decided to head up the coast on HWY 1 today towards Big Sur. Unfortunately Big Sur appeared to only consist of a dozen cabins and a couple of state parks from the road. A bit different than what we had pictured when we were told about it, but whatever. We made a quick stop at <a href="http://www.hearstcastle.org/">Hearst Castle</a> and quickly determined that W.R. Hearst was the original Playboy. This guy knew how to live. He built his own pier and airfield just to get his ornate supplies into the San Simeon area, and worked and re-worked his house design for almost 30 years!

After that we played chicken with about 500 cyclists that were trying to do a century road race on Hwy 1. They also were the reason that we couldn't camp in Big Sur. Every campground looked like it had been turned into a mobile bike shop.

We eventually came to a pull-out that overlooked a gorgeous house hanging off the cliffs, and to our surprise, there were CA Condors floating on the thermals and buzzing within a few feet of us. After getting a bunch of shots and footage of the birds, we headed on up to Monterey. I spent the day hanging out in a Starbucks getting some work done and checking out Cannery Row. Monterey is a cool town.

From there we moved on to figuring out where we were going to sleep. An RV park near the beach was asking for $35/night, so we moved on. What's the next best option? Wal-Mart! Most Wal-Mart's around the country let you park in their parking lots, so we figured, why not? We popped the top in our borrowed Eurovan and were just kicking back to enjoy the $1.97 bottle of wine we bought in Wal-Mart when a loud voice came over a P.A. 'There is no overnight camping in the Wal-Mart parking lot!' - A quick glance out the door confirmed that we were busted by the local gestapo. I guess we should have referenced the <a href="http://rvbookstore.com/shop/detail.aspx?p=1280&m=2">Wal-Mart Atlas</a> to see if this one allowed overnight camping. Well, time to pack up and move on. We drove out towards the 101 and ended up poaching our second campsite of the trip so far. We are campsite ninjas! In and out before anyone realizes we are here...