Our first Military Base Campground!

We spent a week at Camp Pendleton's Del Mar Beach campground in Oceanside, CA and it was fantastic! Didn't hurt that there were record high temps in November where it hit the 90's but with the cool ocean breeze we were perfectly comfortable! Bill had a conference at the La Costa Resort in Carlsbad and the campground was an easy 15 minute drive. Gretchen and Peter, our Tahoe friends, were also at the conference and we had them over one night for a BBQ. It was so nice having an evening with friends! Bill was home in time to enjoy the

 beautiful sunset and some time on the beach most days. Wednesday the conference arranged a pub-crawl of the downtown Gas-Lamp quarter and we were shuttled down there in a beautiful limo for 20+. We hit a lot of the roof-top bars and had a lot of fun. 

Friday night I got to meet Bill's good friends, Scott & Jean. Bill was at the Air Force Academy with Scott, crewed for him on a few of his 100-miler's and also ran quite a few of the Tahoe relays with him as well. It was great to meet these people I have been hearing about for years! They have a lovely home with a beautiful gas fire-pit on their deck where we enjoyed the evening after a Mexican dinner at a local restaurant. It is truly one of the best things about this life-style that we get to meet up with old friends that have moved away.  Sunday night we went for dinner at Marni & Marshall's house - Marni is a good friend of mine I met in 2005 in Walnut Creek. They moved away a couple of year's later to Modesto - where I visited a couple of times and 2 years ago they moved to San Diego. I also had lunch with Marni the first day we got here. It was wonderful seeing her and Marshall and their daughter, Hilary. They have a beautiful home and we had a great visit!

Life on a military base is definitely not dull! I woke each morning to the young Marines running up and down the beach in front of our RV and each afternoon the armored personnel carriers (I thought they were tanks - well, they looked like tanks to me!) rolled by!  We had fun shopping in the MCX (Marine Corps Exchange) and finally found the portable gas grill with a stand I'd been looking for. 

We went for a couple of long walks on the beach, but other than that I have gotten NO exercise - we found out from Bill's friend's Scott & Jean, at the end of our stay, that there was a great gym on base, walking distance from the beach, which I finally found on our last day there - have to check that out next time! 

Here's a pic of all of the RV's parked on the beach BEFORE the weekend:

Most of the San Diego beach campgrounds are $60-$90/night and we stayed here for $35 - it was a great deal and a beautiful beach...the only complaint I had were the public bathrooms & showers, which Bill likes to use, but he found them adequate, so I really can't complain! We will be back!!