California Christmas

We spent this week camping on the bluffs over South Carlsbad Beach. This is the classic California beach, with surfers, pelicans, beach combing, and sunshine.

Andy brought his two buddies Kyle and Caleb, who had a blast playing football in the surf. On the first night, my folks and my brother came down for a not-so traditional Christmas campfire, dinner and gift exchange.

The beach is very rocky, and the sand has taken a black cast from the cobbles. This provides the perfect habitat for stingrays, so the boys had to learn how to do the stingray-shuffle to keep from getting stung as they walked in the water.

Sherry spent a lot of time combing through the surf and came home with pockets full of cool shells and stones.

We brought along the dogs, but they never got to go down to the surf. We'll have to save that for one of the beaches that allow dogs.

The extension cord I made for the caboose worked like a charm. After running the heater all night, I only needed to idle the truck for a half-hour to top off the battery. The LED lights helped too, but now that I know the extension works, I would probably put the bright light back over the stove.