We wanted to start close to the Mexican Border, so that our travels take us up the whole west coast.  Heading south our first visit was to Brian’s mom, Sandy and her husband Maynard in Bakersfield.  We set up in their driveway for a couple days visit.  It’s nice to get out of the cold and rainy northern California winter we have been having.  After a visit with family, we headed south to San Onofre to camp for a night on the way to San Diego.  We thought we were camping on the coast there, but it turned out that the coast campground was closed, and the one we were staying at was across the way called San Mateo.  At first we were bummed we weren’t on the coast, but it turned out to be really nice.  We have a nice view of the valley, and it was a 1.5 mile hike to the beach, which Bianca really appreciated.  It was also quiet and more private than the coast site looked.

Then we headed south to Silver Strand which is on the Coronado side of San Diego.  We are on a spit of sand the stretches almost all the way to Tijuana, which we can see from our beach.  It’s a bit of a packed and noisy campground, but a nice spot on the water nonetheless.  We are still outfitting our Airstream, and spent one day picking up a few things at West Marine, an awesome boating and outdoors store, and then the Container Store, which has proved to be a great place to help outfit the little things, like suction cup hooks, a suction cup shower caddy, and even a suction cup cup holder for next to the bed, so I can have place to put my water at night.

San Diego has mostly state and military beaches, so we had to use our Bring Fido app to find a dog friendly beach.  We have gone to two.  Del Mar Dog Beach and Coronado Dog Beach.  The one in Del Mar is near the Fish Market Restaurant, so we went there for lunch, which is a favorite spot growing up of Brian’s family.  From there we headed up the road to our favorite farm, Chino Farms, and bought some delicious ingredients to start working on our cookbook photo shoots.  We spotted the owner, and it felt like seeing a celebrity.  His farm is quite famous.

Next we headed up the coast to Malibu.  We are staying at a top notch place overlooking the water, and have a killer view!  Supposedly Matthew McConaughey has an Airstream here, but I don’t know, maybe it’s shenanigans.  We decided to stay more nights here, it’s super relaxing.  My sister and her family came to visit us and we all played at the beach.  Will, our 6 years old nephew, wants to travel with us, but requested we put in a hot tub, and our 4 year old nephew Jake wants to know where the button is to make the Airstream fly. 🙂