My other Airstream is a Dune Buggy

We tried to do as Rich and Eleanor did-- camp on the beach at Pismo State Beach, one of the rare places in America where you can pull your rig right onto the oceanfront. We were not successful. We should have heeded the wary looks from the park attendant when we paid our ten dollars admittance and insisted we could manage just fine. After all, Rich and Eleanor pulled their Airstream right up on the sand and they made it look fun.

We, however, met with some challenges I don't think they encountered. First of all, we arrived on a Saturday. Once we hit the sand we immediately saw what was hidden from view at the entrance: hundreds, maybe thousands of helmeted people on ATV's. The place was like a raceway with no boundaries: Road toys zipping to and fro between 4WD vehicles and RV's; little nylon tents dotting the sand behind the "roadway" and the dunes; people strolling on the surf's edge. Everywhere a dangerous collision lurked. We had no opportunity to make a U-turn out of there. Our best move was to keep our speed up and keep moving before we got stuck in the sand. We were told the campground was two miles down the beach, but would we make it?

No. A mile down we hit a patch of deep dry sand and came to a halt. Robert and I looked at each other and grimaced. Now what? The wind was beating sand against the windows. The last thing I wanted to do was to get outside, but I did in a vain attempt to access our situation. Within moments we had help--a man began instructing Robert to deflate the air in all the tires. I let them have at it and jumped back into the car to get out of the blowing sand. Amazingly, the trick worked. We popped right out. Robert's new friend encouraged us to stay. He said, "You're fine now, just pull in down there between that group of RV's" Robert hesitated to say no after all the man's help, but I was poking him to get a move on. I wanted no part of this mayhem.

We graciously thanked him, waited for the brief moment when we could clear a U-turn and gunned it out of there. Once we hit pavement we nervously searched out a place to get air for the tires. And once we were put back together we pulled our sand-beaten selves to the county park into a pull-through with hook-ups and called it a day. We laughed about what silly rookies we were and for the next few hours I would occasionally bite down on a grain on sand.

Sometime in the night our Airstream began to shake and rumble. A passing train roared down tracks unnoticed by us when we chose our spot. It was one of many. But I felt as long as it didn't jump its tracks and tumble down on us we were certainly safer than down on that beach where some combustion driven toy, big or little, might easily run us down.