September 7, 2017 Day 91
Where to even begin with today. Today turned into the day from hell. When I woke up I was so exhausted and kept falling back asleep until around 08:00. Then I opened up my computer to try and plan Los Angeles and where I would be staying with my camper. Well, needless to say it turned into an entire day looking on the internet and calling people trying to find somewhere to stay. While I was trying to create my plan my mother called me to see what my plan for the day was. Near the end of the conversation she began to cry for she missed me and hates that I am having such a rough time and that in turned wanted to make me cry for nothing hurts my heart more than hearing or seeing my mother upset. Once we hung up, I gathered myself and left the rest area to head back north towards Laguna beach for there were some things I wanted to see there.
In Laguna beach, I wanted to go to the beach and see Heisler Park and the discovery cove area so I put the official visitor center into my GPS. I had planned to stop there to ask some questions and see about parking with my camper since they were not answering their phones; however, as I drove by I saw that there was no where to park my camper let alone just a single vehicle. I continued driving and changed my GPS to take me to the park which also turned out to have no parking for me which is what I had figured. So I drove back the way I came where I had seen a beach parking lot that had lots of available parking spaces. I pulled in and sat there to figure out where I could camp for the night already giving up on being able to do or see anything I had wanted to in this area.
Every single place I called no one ever answered or called me back and if they did then I was told they were full or would not accept my camper for it did not have hookups and it is some new ordinance that the camper must have hookups to be in an RV spot! Then my internet on my phone started to not work which frustrated me so I called up mom to see if there was any possibility she would be able to go on the computer at home and look something up for me. She gave me some places to call and they were either full or cost at least $50.00/night plus they only had pay showers! I knew California would be difficult but I never thought it would be this bad. It was at this point, after calling at least twenty numbers and with my mom calling and searching from Wisconsin, that I had about all I could handle. I drove to an In N Out and sat down inside with a cheeseburger to decompress.
I wont lie and I hate to admit it but I cried multiple times today for I was just stressed out with not knowing where I would be sleeping and not being able to do any of things I wanted to see. To me I kept thinking, "I am missing out on doing all these things and who knows if I will ever come back to California." Also, although my mom was way more help then I could explain here and I truly appreciated her help I kind of wished I had someone physically with me that I could lean on for some support and help every once in awhile. I do get tired of trying to hold myself up all the time and making sure people know I am alright and doing great even when in truth I am falling apart at the seams and barely holding on. It is during those times that I have to tell myself that every time something as been difficult or an obstacle has been placed in my way I have found a way to overcome it and maybe today is not going well and maybe tomorrow will be the same but it will pass. and I will come out on top.
After I ate my cheeseburger I sat in my vehicle contemplating with my mom on my two options and which one of the two I should take. One was to drive an hour or so north to Chino Hills State Park and pay $30.00 and the other was to drive south to the coast, to Crystal Cove, to pay $50.00 plus any shower I wanted to take. They were both about the same in travel time, though Crystal Cove did look closer on the map, and with Chino Hills I knew the code to get into the gate so there was no way I would get there and not be able to get in. That was another issue with all the places I had called today. They all had gates that either closed at 17:00, 19:00 or 22:00 and once they closed one could not get back into the park!
With my decision made I drove north to Chino Hills State Park. The drive there started off fine though I did hit traffic; however, my GPS ended up taking me to a road that had gates I could not get through. So I had to back track and go all the way around the park, an additional hour, to get to the road that led to the campground. As I drove up the steep hill a county sheriff stopped me on the slope to make sure I paid the fee to get into the campground. So I sat on this steep slope writing out the $30.00 check so that he could let me proceed. When I found a spot at the campground I backed in and as I stepped out of my vehicle I had my sense of smell annihilated with something awful I could not place. Also, there were millions of little non-biting ants everywhere that covered my feet and my legs to where I was literally crawling with bugs!
Since I hadn't showered since I was on the beach and this place had free showers I went and took one which made me feel a little better. After the stressful day I had I was in no mood to do anything plus I had absolutely no service to send out any messages or calls. So with that I crawled into bed and passed out.
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