Wednesday Jan 24, 2023 La Jolla to South Carlsbad Beach State Park.

We only had a 45 minute drive to our next stop so we lolly-gagged this morning. Beth had already dropped Joe off so we chatted and nibbled on breakfast until around 9:00 so we could avoid the rush hour traffic. The advice we got from Deb’s friend Maggie is to drive between 10am and 2pm since this part of California is wall to wall people. We said our goodbyes to Beth and sure enough, the traffic was very manageable. Deb found a coffee place in Ensinitas called Better Buzz, and we stopped for a leisurely coffee and tea break. Next stop was the town of Carlsbad, which is just beyond the State Park we’ll stay in tonight. We found a couple of stairways down to the beach and because of high tide the first was just surfers and rocks, no beach. The second one right in

Carlsbad had plenty of sandy beach so we walked a ways and then climbed up to town. We found a place for lunch called Swami’s that Beth had recommended, and it served breakfast all day, My kind of place. After lunch we wandered around town looking for a visitor center with no luck (we learned it had closed a couple of years ago). Since we couldn’t check into the campground until 2, we decided to visit the Museum of Making Music. It was inexpensive and very well done. It;s housed in the building where the National Association of Music Manufacturers (NAMM) is housed, and includes a lot of history about musical instruments and recording technology. The guide also had some pretty good musician jokes…

After our museum visit we drove to the park and checked in. Our campsite is right on a bluff overlooking the ocean. I unpacked and started the blog while Deb checked out the beach and campground store.