expocruiser: Pismo Beach

After going to Surf 'n Turf consecutively in '08 and '09, we missed the event in 2010. The 2011 event was being organized as the 10th Annual, and potentially, the last official Surf 'n Turf event, so I wanted to go for one last time. With this event being the largest annual gathering of Toyota Land Cruisers in North America, as well as it potentially being the last official event, I had a feeling it would be huge turnout.

I had been working to rebuild our roof top tent and awning that had been destroyed in our roll-over, and was hoping to get it all back together before the event. I knew we could always use our ground tent as we had done in the past, but I figured it would be a lot more comfortable sleeping up on top, especially with the weather being unpredictable on the beach in Pismo in early November. The awning was fairly easy to repair, but the tent was a little more of a challenge. There was a huge tear in the tent wall, but thankfully my wife was able to sew it up and we weather-proofed it. The bonus was that it was under the rainfly. The custom hinged brackets had to be hammered back into shape since I didn't have a way to have them re-cut from a fabricator since the tent is South African made. The all-weather travel cover was pretty torn up, and after attempting unsuccessfully to have a replacement imported in, I sent it out to be repaired by a friend of a friend that does airplane upholstery. I finally got it back from him the evening before we were ready to leave and re-installed it, mounted up the tent back onto the load bars and bolted everything onto the Cruiser in the driveway in the dark. The neighbors probably thought I was crazy. Nothing like getting everything ready to go until hours before your trip. But I was happy to have the roof top tent back in working order.

With the Cruiser packed up and ready to go, Marcus and I headed up early the next morning to beat the LA traffic. One of the fun parts of the drive up is to pass and caravan up with some of the Land Cruisers that you see on the road as everyone converges in on Surf 'n Turf. We ended up rolling into Pismo a little after lunch and headed to the beach to drive along the shoreline to camp. We stayed on the outskirts of the camp. I'm not a huge fan of camping in crowds, and I know sometimes the main camp can get rowdy with over 200 vehicles, so we elected to find a spot away from the madness. We lucked out and ended up camping next to a really nice family from Northern California with a similar 80-series Land Cruiser. They had a little girl that Marcus played really well with all weekend, so that was great.

The next day, there was a "poker run" activity scheduled through the Oceano Dunes. We signed up along with our neighbors, and set out for the run. We made it through the first checkpoint, and were heading to the next checkpoint along the dune ridges and ended up taking a bad line and sliding part way down a dune sideways and in a really bad spot off-camber. I stopped, knowing if we tried to keep going on our own, we were at very serious risk of rolling down the dune. Of course, this didn't sit well with my son (or really me either) after our prior roll-over experience, so he was pretty freaked out. Thankfully, in a big event like this, someone spotted us in our precarious situation and with the help of a couple more rigs, we were able to successfully get pulled out to safety with no injury or damage. That did conclude our poker run though, as our nerves were pretty shot at that point. We went back to camp and learned later that someone else actually had rolled their FJ40 on the dunes and had to be evacuated for a broken leg, so we were very fortunate.

Even though this wasn't what I would classify as an expedition trip, it was a fun event to attend. There were all kinds of great Land Cruisers to check out, and it was fun to meet up with a lot of new people and reconnect with some that we had met in the past. And any excuse to go camping is always a good one in my book.

http://forum.ih8mud.com/trails-events-expeditions/487764-surf-n-turf-2011-a.html

Marcus and I made the long 6+ hour drive from San Diego to Pismo Beach in my FJ40 Land Cruiser for the 8th annual Surf 'n Turf event (November 2009). Slow, loud, unrefined, with no radio or AC, it was an incredibly monotonous journey out, save for the beautiful drive along the coast between Ventura up past Santa Barbara and finally arriving at Pismo. This was our second straight year attending Surf 'n Turf, which is the largest gathering of Toyota Land Cruisers in the Northern Hemisphere. Land Cruiser owners from all over the U.S. converge on the sand dunes of Pismo Beach to camp out on the beach once a year. There is everything there from the original FJ40 inspired FJ Cruisers, to all years of Land Cruisers, from stock to custom builds, including rare non-U.S. imports.

When Marcus and I pulled into camp, there were already hundreds of people already there. We set up in the next available spot, and lucked out by having wonderful neighbors. Our neighbors were from Central California, and Marcus and their kids were instant friends. They spent the weekend playing football, digging in the sand, playing in the ocean, etc., etc. Our neighbors told me about how they loved to do extended camping trips where they would explore and check out as much as possible and explained "expedition" style vehicle based camping. They were equipped to go to remote locations where they had to carry their own provisions including food, water, ice, supplies, fuel, etc., for many days at a time while they went and explored remote locations away from all services and civilization. This idea of traveling remotely, off-road, relying on what I carried, and seeing things most people don't get to see appealed to me greatly. They mentioned they were planning a small group trip to Death Valley that next spring and invited us along. Although this was the first weekend I had met them, I accepted their invitation and we started making plans for a week-long trip into Death Valley. As I started researching more about this "expedition"-style camping, and how it incorporated off-roading with camping with exploration, I realized this was exactly what I enjoyed doing.

My blue FJ40 next to a similar green 40 series

My first exposure to roof-top tents. We spent the weekend on the ground (on the right), but after seeing people set up with RTT's, I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.