Camping in Santa Barbara

Well, I survived it!

Jenetta and her mom were in Chicago for a women blogging convention, so I had the girls by myself from Thursday to Sunday. I decided to take advantage of the time and take them camping.

I wanted to go somewhere cool, and I felt that the drive to the Sierras would be too long. It would be in the upper 90s in our local mountains, so I thought Santa Barbara was a better choice.

Well, it made for an interesting adventure, but it was just as hot and dusty there as it would be here. Live and learn! Our campsite was east and north of Santa Barbara, but it was actually down the ridge on the other side in a canyon, so there were no ocean breezes to cool us at all. And because I was delayed in getting everything packed up, we left later than I wanted to, so we hit solid traffic from Burbank all the way to Santa Barbara and the trip up took over 6 hours!

We finally made it to the campground, and the stove that I borrowed ran out of fuel - of course I didn't have a spare fuel can with me, so the mac and cheese I was making did not turn out very well. We ended up making hot dogs over the fire, which was just fine.

I set up our outdoor shower and got the girls ready for bed. Stories in the tent were a lot of fun, and they snuggled closely to hear what I was telling them. They actually slept surprisingly well, but I doubt I got more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep in total.

The next morning, we drove farther into the canyon to find swimming holes on the Oso Creek. The water hadn't run for some time, but the swimming holes were still filled. When we arrived, there were only a few people, but soon it was packed. The water was green and very stagnant and with all the people jumping into it, I didn't have to wonder why. The girls thought it was yucky, and although we swam a little bit, most of the morning was spent just playing in the mud.

We had lunch by the swimming hole and then went back to get cleaned up for nap time. Continued in the next post...

Below are some photos of the view toward where we camped, our campsite, and the Oso Creek experience. Of special note is our shower. The girls and I built and painted the shower deck together on Thursday. We used mostly leftover wood and old paint. It was a great project to do together!