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When I was in my early twenties, I lived in Morro Bay, California for a couple months. I loved living so close to the beach, but didn’t have much time to actually explore the area. When Jeremy and I moved to Monterey a couple years after we got married, we decided there were two things we needed to do: explore San Francisco (Jeremy had lived there for a time around the same time I was further south) and explore the Morro Bay area.
I’ll talk about our San Francisco explorations another time, but for now I’ll talk about Morro Bay.
We drove the 1 from Monterey to Morro Bay, passing through Big Sur and San Simeon along the way. If we’d had the extra funds, we’d have visited Hearst Castle, but the tours are pricey and we couldn’t swing it at the time. Someday we will though, as we still haven’t been to the castle (I wasn’t able to go when I lived in Morro Bay, either).
When we reached Morro Bay we wandered around town and down to Morro beach. I wanted to show Jeremy the iconic Morro Rock (though I forgot to take a picture of it). After some exploration, we drove a little further south to Montana de Oro State Park.
There we set up our tent at our campsite not far from the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. It was a spectacular site and we fell asleep to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below. If I remember correctly, it was a primitive campsite with no amenities other than a vault toilet. (it looks like they have RV sites now, though I don’t remember seeing any back then)
In the morning we hiked along the trail that followed the edge of the cliff. We couldn’t find an easy way down to the beach, so we stayed up on the cliffs. We were only able to stay the one night, so after hiking along the cliffs we headed back home. This was such a great experience, and one that we would love to repeat with the children.
Have you ever camped overlooking the ocean?
