As long as I can remember (1956 to be exact) we have been vacationing at San Clemente State Beach.  We are looking forward to this week as we always do.

We’ve had an interesting week here in Redlands. It’s been hot, our contractors are hard at work finishing up the new deck and other things, and there are wild fires in the mountains southeast of here.  It has made for an amazing night sky:

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So we organized and packed for our trip…

We set out from Redlands Saturday morning. Temperatures are predicted to be a relative cool 101 degrees in Redlands today – It has been 105 or higher for the past several days.  But San Clemente should have a high of only 77 degrees.  We are looking forward to this respite from the heat…

Another rare event for today is that we will be camping solo – none of our fellow Airstreamers are joining us until tomorrow, when Steve and Jane Carmichael, from Orange, and Mark and Connie Miller, from Tustin, will arrive for the week…

We were shocked, upon our arrival at 12:30 pm, that the park rangers would not let us in until 2:00.  We’ve been coming to San Clemente State Park since 1956, and we have never been denied access to the park.  If our site is not yet vacant, we were able to park in the day use area.  Not today.  If we wanted to park in the day use area for 1 1/2 hours it would cost $30.  Our other choice would be to turn around and find a parking spot on the street.  Oh, well.  No use arguing with the 20 something junior ranger – he’s just following orders.  We turned around (not always easy in a rig 57′ long…) and found a parking spot where Tony’s El Camino Market used to be…

At 2:00 pm we pulled up to the guard shack again.  There was the expected traffic jam – 4 rigs ahead of us, 3 more behind, as we all tried to enter at the same time.  This is what we early arrivers generally help to eliminate, but I guess these park rangers like having a crowd at their gates…

We set up quickly, and I settled in to what I normally do here at the beach:

img_6299 We walked to town for dinner at a new place – One Eleven Coastal. We had a lovely table overlooking the sidewalk and the old Hotel San Clemente across the street.  The Old Fashions were perfect, and we enjoyed sharing 3 appetizers – at our advanced ages it about all we can eat…

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We Uber’d back to the park, and arrived just in time for the sunset:

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And an enjoyable time was had by all…