We left San Juan Capistrano and the coyotes behind and headed back to the beach for a five night stay at San Clemente Beach State Park.  We didn’t know what to expect after our stay at Huntington Beach in the cramped and noisy state park there.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a nice park with fairly spacious sites and best of all, the park was practically empty.  The campground is located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean with train tracks at the bottom of the cliff running right along the beach, and I-5, the busy freeway on the other side.  To our relief, neither the train noise or freeway noise was a problem.  There was a nice buffer of trees and the freeway was far enough away to not be a problem, and since the trains did not blow their whistles, we could sleep at night with the windows open with no problems.

It was a bit of a hike down to the beach from the campground, but there was a nice paved trail and we saw some beautiful sunsets from the bluffs.

Sunset from San Clemente

Sunset from San Clemente

While here in San Clemente we made the jaunt two hours north to Castaic to see Bill’s Aunt Emily.  She flew from her home in Illinois to spend the winter with her son in California.  We saw Aunt Emily last year when we traveled through Illinois and we so happy to have another chance to see her.

Aunt Emily, Bill and George Selph