#i have some thought out lore in my drafts and id love to explore it

[sozzledjuja]

In my post S3 au...

Mephisto is looking rough but he'll be fine. They'll both be.

[pizza-soup]

Home on the creek

San Clemente, CA

When coming here from such a long drive, we always set aside a day or two to do absolutely nothing. We got the same spot again. That same secluded area by a creek with a single bathroom and shower, a cement table, large firepit, potable water spigot and shady oak tree. I love how private it is. I think our closest neighbors were about 160 feet away, we only knew they were there because we heard kids. There are sites near us, but they were not taken that summer due to being ‘stripped camps’ -camps with no water, tables or firepits- and very few people like those sites unless they’re in RVs and have their own resources. All the popular electric camps are closer to the front gate, and it gets packed! I don’t mind the stripped camps though. I’ve camped in the middle of nowhere many times. It’s pretty liberating to be honest and really tests your survival skills. My mom did not want to go that route and insisted we have the basics at our space. She was beginning to like camping, but she didn’t want to camp like I did, she wasn’t quite ready for that yet. She also liked the convenience of our camp being only a 35 minute drive away over from a grocery store, gas station and other places that made her feel like she wasn’t totally cut off from the world. XD

My bro had no trouble this time helping me with the tent, since it pretty much set up itself. This year we didn’t have separate ones, but a huge one that could sleep ten people. It had an outdoor space with a rain hood to put a table and three separate sections that zippered off from each other with two entrances. My bro took the back room, I took the entrance room and my mom got the middle, where drafts wouldn’t hit her. We had some new additions to our site as well, like solar garden lights, my mom’s idea, she could take one as she went to the bathroom, and it would charge throughout the day while we were gone. My bro bought a solar battery for charging things, which we put on the dash board of the car to catch the earliest light. We found that it came in handy for nearly all our electronics and now I feel a need to buy one for myself too. And for fun, we got 150 piece glow sticks. They make for great light painting photos and as zipper pulls in the middle of the night. Nothing worse than fumbling at the entrance of the tent when you really gotta go. XD

We had a very quick dinner of rotisserie chicken, salad mix and tortilla wraps with some salsa, then settled in with some hot tea. We picked up some watermelon too, netted it and dunked it in the creek while we prepped and ate dinner. By the time we got back to it, it was ice cold! And before anyone gets scared about bears, keep in mind people BBQ out there, I’m sure the smell of meat is a lot stronger than fruit in a stream. Plus, the creek was far enough away from us so even if a bear decided to help itself, we could escape in our car. So far, we’ve never had trouble with animals taking our food, except for the one time a family of squirrels broke into our tent and took our bread. XD We gotta worry more about those squirrels than bears out here, they are master thieves!

This time the campground offered some summer programs, one of them being a snake exhibit at the nature center, they had live local species on display, how to ID snakes and what to do if there's an encounter. There was also a wonderful exhibit on the indigenous people of the area, their past and future, and where to go to get more information on the native tribes of the coast. The speaker and snake handler was so cool, I even got to hold an tiny baby rosy boa, just hatched not even three days. That night, my mom asked me to go with her to the bathroom twice, the presentation made her feel any stick in the area might be a snake. We didn’t see one snake in our entire stay there though. XD

The next morning, we decided to explore San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. We window shopped, got some coffee, and sat around in the shady park and fountains. There was a mural of the elemental deities in local lore and how they created the area and all it's creatures. Later we visited the mission, took our time to admire the gardens and learn about it's history. We got to see the swallows, which the town is well known for, went into the altar area and browsed the giftshop. Didn’t find anything I liked except for the pressed pennies and postcards. One thing I loved about this mission is that they finally acknowledged and apologized for the terrible treatment and cultural erasure of many of the indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic church. I hadn't seen that in the other California missions I've visited. I’m so glad that part of history is being taught to the public now. And keep in mind, I’m Native, so that was a nice respectful thing to see.

Later that night there was a star party! They had telescopes out, had someone talk about the night sky and had a campfire storytime about the animals you will see and how to be good guests to the parks. After the event, we stayed up late, the stars were so bright that night that I thought it would be a great idea to leave the top of the tent off...until we were woken up by thunder very early in the morning. It was a scramble to put the top back on before the rain fell. We did it on time, but we were so riled up, we couldn't get back to sleep, so we sat in the front room hearing the rain outside. It continued to rain for most of that morning, we went into the village below to get something to eat, then headed to the beach to see what the storm washed up.