D. searches for our site

We drove out of the Los Angeles area late on a Friday afternoon, leaving behind 93-degree heat and blacktop that warmed your feet through your flip-flops.  Only an hour later, when we pulled into the campground at McGrath State Beach, on the Pacific coast in Ventura, the temperature was a balmy 65.

Ah, beach camping.

We chose McGrath because it was the only nearby beach campground in the state park system that had reservations available during the summer months when we logged on to ReserveAmerica.com, which handles all of the system’s campsites.  I wondered if that was a bad sign, but we decided to forge ahead.  Camping is an adventurous pursuit, after all, and what’s more adventurous than trying a spot we’d never even seen before?  Plus, the pictures online are pretty.  How bad can it be?

Those are famous last words for many people.  In this case, it was only a little bit bad.

I’ll talk about the good things first.  I already mentioned the temps.  Our weekend in Ventura was a very welcome respite from the baking heat of Los Angeles.  The coast at McGrath is far from any parking lots, so it was nearly deserted the few times we hiked out over the dunes and through the marshy lagoon to get to the shore.  One word of caution:  the riptide here is serious business, so only let your kids swim if they know what they’re doing.  I chased a sandcastle bucket at least 200 yards north of where a rogue wave snatched it into the surf.

Bird's lagoon

Later that afternoon we ventured to Marina Park, a wonderful enclosed beach with a kids’ play area, bathrooms, and a grounded pirate ship with a zip line attached (although I wouldn’t dare to put my children on it).  The park is at the end of Pierpont Blvd. (go north from McGrath campground on Harbor, turn left on Peninsula, then left again on Pierpont and the road dead-ends at the giant, free parking lot).  It was warmer here, so there was more water play and some sand castle building.  And destroying.

Marina Park

McGrath State Beach Campground is $35 per night for a standard campsite, and $10 per night for each extra car.  We chose a site that was surrounded by trees and brush – otherwise the sites were mostly out in the open, with scarce privacy.  They are all arranged in spokes around cul-de-sacs.  You must tromp through other sites to get out to the dunes (which are closed right now because the birds are nesting!).    I wouldn’t have wanted to be those people, with the masses trekking through our stuff to go to the beach.

Nesting Season

Roasting marshmallows

The sites are appointed with standard metal fire pits.  The good news about them is that they exist and are usable.  The bad news begins…now.

When we arrived, someone had just vacated our site, so the fire pit was full of garbage, and not flammable garbage, either.  We had to squeamishly pick it out before we started our fire.  The picnic table was similarly littered with bits of fruit and something unidentifiable.

While our site was semi-private, it was also in the dirt section of the campground.  Many of the open sites are on grass or sand, but we were in the area closer to the entry road, and those sites are dirt.  Not good dirt, either.  The kind of dirt that kicks up cloud of pervasive dust when small children shuffle through it, or throw it at each other, or use shovels and buckets with it.  By the end of our stay, everything we brought with us was coated with a film of this dirt.  I am not a dirt fan, so I had a big of soul-searching to get over before I could relax and surrender to the dirt.  Once I did that I had a much better time.

The bathrooms were, in a word, foul.  Showers are 25 cents for 2 minutes, but we chose to skip that because of how nasty the stalls were.  We saw the staff cleaning the bathrooms, but basically they just sprayed them down and took out the garbage.  No scrubbing was witnessed, nor was there evidence of such activity.  The bathroom buildings do have washing sinks on the outside with hot water, which was helpful for washing dishes.

Camping in the summertime on the beach in California is of course going to be a crowded adventure.  I suppose if we go at a different time of year, the campground might be less messy.  The dirt, however, will still be there.

Hello from the beach! Wish you were here...

[all photos by Kim Tracy Prince]