KUHL Weekly Musings

“It must be nice”

“Well wouldn’t we all like to….”

“We could only be so lucky…”

“Must be nice…”

“How can you live in such a small space….?”

Our collective dreams are BIG and would fill a journal and then some. Some are concrete and attainable, others live in the realm of “who do you think you are?” and “well, wouldn’t we all like to…” What if we all made a choice to actively pursue just one dream (whatever it may be)?

We give you the “What IF?”

Can we actually climb mountains in our dreams? What if our dreams lived outside of our sleep? What if our dreams where suppose to be our reality and our reality…well just reality. What if we started living out our dreams daily and that became status quo. What if our sons and daughter knew only to dream and that living in reality was from “the oldener days” What if boxes didn’t exist. That there were only wide open spaces…room to move, create, inspire, change, love….What if we carved out a new existence of dreamers, believers, risk takers, truth seekers…hopeful wanderers.

What if the now was to walk fully awake…in your dreams?!?!   AHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Really, we think what it comes down to is what we choose to make priority in our lives. We don’t feel like the dream of travel and adventure is a luxury anymore than others feel like a vehicle is a luxury in life. It is simply what we choose to invest time and money into. We can live without plasma TV, a big beautiful home, new cars, lulu lemon (although they do have a magic way of making your ass look mighty fine). What we can’t live without is adventure and travel. Our lifestyle is very hard to grasp by some, particularly with 3 kids in tow. We are unsure of where the next paycheck will come from, we live mortgage free because we don’t choose to own a home and we do not know where we will be living come spring. We choose to live today the best we can, believing and trusting that in the middle of following our hearts, things fall into place. And if they don’t, we figure it out! Some may call this unrealistic and irresponsible, we call it our story and we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Malibu to BIG SUR

As our journey continued North, we stopped at El Matador Beach to check out the crazy rock formations.

Heading inland, camping in Lake Casitas Egret Campground and exploring the Carpentaria area.

As we made our way up the coast, we experienced beach front camping again at Oceano Dunes SVRA. Windy, but so much fun. Make sure to check and double check where you should drive and park and keep in mind the tides. The first night we remained hooked up to the trailer and we’re on tide watch until 11:30 pm. Thankfully the tide only came within 10’ of our trailer.

We ended up with a really great deal on quads and dune buggies which was a blast!

The Big Sur area is something that should be experienced by everyone at least once in a lifetime. Imagine the blue waters of the Pacific hugging the Santa Lucia Mountains. It may leave you wondering why you had waited so long to visit. The color palette of blues and sage create the most amazing photographs. With sage and thistles growing wild, the smell in musty and intoxicating. Grab a camera or two, put the top down and stop every opportunity possible. We traveled up the coast to maximize on the beauty as we drove. The coastline does a constant north-westward sweep, always providing an amazing view. However the benefit of traveling southward down the coast is the opportunity to pull over as often as you like.

We ended up dropping our trailer at Plaskett Creek Campground and then ventured back down in just our truck as we were unable to access most of the pullouts on the opposite side of the highway with a large trailer.

A note about Plaskett Creek…we booked a site for a 35’ trailer but there was no way we could get into it. The campground was fully booked and the amazing host let us park up in group camping. There was only one other tenter in the area and we ended up with a spectacular view of the ocean and sunset. Yay for big trailers and great hosts! This is the one time that a large trailer worked in our favor. There are a number of other really great campgrounds in the area including Pfeiffer Big Sur SP, Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP and Limekiln SP but they do book up very quickly. We found a really helpful website called Next Campsite that allows you to see a photo of the actual site you are booking.

While camping in the Big Sur area we ventured out on a number of day trips including Monterey Aquarium. Allow at least 4 hours to make it worth your money and make sure you fit in the sea otter feeding. Hilarious creatures.

After the aquarium we hit up Hula’s Island Grill for happy hour tapas. We don’t eat out a lot when we travel. After the aquarium we decided to treat ourselves. Ah who am I kidding really didn’t want to go home and cook. We would have to say that it was probably the best meal we had out in 2016 and only $90 for food and drinks for 5!

We loved our pit stop in the storybook town of Carmel by the Sea and came out with a box full of pastries from one of the many delicious bakeries. Pop down to the local beach to enjoy powdering white sand and azure blue water. You can own a little fixer up cottage in downtown Carmel for a cool million.

Make sure to take time to see Bixby Creek Bridge and McWay Falls

The beaches and surfing in the area are endless. One of our favorites was Big Sur River Mouth Beach. We spent hours beach combing, climbing, playing in the waves and making friends with a grumpy old sea lion. Sad discovery on the beach was the remnants of off shore drilling spill, there were little oil slicks all over the sand 🙁 After asking questions and doing some research, we discovered that this is very common for the Pacific Coastline.

From Big Sur we traveled inland for our first Boondocking experience and the bar was set high. We were welcomed by the most gracious hosts that provided full hook ups, laundry, pool and a pup for the kids to spoil (and wine :)). It was the May Long weekend and we had every intention of visiting Yosemite from this location, but after pulling the trailer through the Big Sur area, I don’t think Mike realized how stressful it was and parked his ass in the lounger and did not move for 2 days. It was a much needed break and the kids had a blast. We definite plan to visit Yosemite in the very near future….maybe not on a long weekend 😉

 

 

 

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