Luxury Yurt Camping at Mount Madonna

It's an unwritten rule that if you vacation in California, you must go to the beach.  It just seems like the right thing to do.

I had been on vacation in California for five weeks and still hadn't seen the ocean.  It was time.  My summer hostess (sister-in-law) decided she'd like to take a beach trip somewhere new and more beach-y than her usual spot in the Coastal Redwoods near Crescent city.  After agonizing (mostly on my part) over the logistics and the cost, we opted to take an excursion to Santa Cruz because she had never been.  In an amazing bit of sleuthing, she managed to secure us a yurt at the Mount Madonna county campground, mid-way between Santa Cruz and Monterey.  It was the perfect solution to save money and do a bit more camping without having to drive her monstrous dually pick-up and the travel trailer.  We packed the Honda Pilot to the gills with food, sleeping bags, blankets, beach paraphernalia, clothes, things to keep the kids busy in the car, and ourselves.  This was to be our final big overnight adventure of the summer and we planned to make the most of it!

Hope we got everything.

Halfway to Santa Cruz, as we entered the metropolis of the San Francisco Bay area, my sister-in-law took us on a detour. Somehow, in all that freeway and city mess, she recognized that she was in the vicinity of the world Jelly Belly headquarters.  Within minutes we pulled into the parking lot and told the kids to get out and behold where we were.  Smiles slowly creeped up their faces.  This was a new experience for my son and I.  We all walked into the massive building, which was decked out in bright jelly bean colors, and we got into line for a tour of the factory.  For a Sunday, the place was surprisingly packed with tourists, but we eventually received our mandatory Jelly Belly paper hats and joined a tour group.  We spent the next hour being led through the silent factory (machines don't run on the weekends), watching shorts films about the history of the jelly bean, Ronald Reagan's favorite flavor, and the development of Jelly Belly's rise to candy fame.  I won't say too much because I don't want to spoil it for you.  As tours go, it won't win any awards, but they did give out free samples.

Detour!  A tasty way to stretch our legs.

Jelly bean art.  Really.

Jelly Belly centers awaiting their candy shell.

Finished beans drying.

Ice cream shop flavors.

At the end of the tour, we descended on the gift shop and selected our take-away treats for the road.  I'll be honest that the options were a bit overwhelming.  Our final choices included chocolate covered fruit flavors, a kids pack with mystery flavors, a bag of 'belly flops' (irregular beans of all flavors), and a jelly bean game called Beanboozled.  The game makes you spin an arrow on a colored dial.  Then you eat a single bean of your selected color, but there's a catch: each color may be one of two different flavors.  One flavor is yummy and the other is decidedly not.  You don't know which one you've got until your chew.  It's like Russian Roulette for your tastebuds.  Some of the not-so-yummy flavors include skunk, earwax, soap, and earthworm.  The stakes are high if you're squeamish.  Will you get coconut or babywipes?  As the tour explained, Jelly Belly has teams of researchers who work diligently to correctly mimic the tastes of each of their flavors, using natural ingredients whenever possible.  I can only assume that their philosophy extends to these 'beanboozled' varieties, right?  I'll just let that thought simmer for a bit.

Jelly bean overstimulation?

There are seriously a lot of choices.

What would you need to get paid to become a taste-tester for these?

 For a fun challenge, each of us went to the sample bar and selected at least one nasty flavored bean to try.  I really think mine was the nastiest.  While I've never eaten a real centipede, the bean that claims to be flavored like one unveiled at least three layers of pungent grossness that melted in my mouth like rancid meat and turned my breath to something horrible.  Next to that wretchedness, toothpaste flavor would have been welcomed.

This is the look of a dog food flavored jelly bean.

Yellow: Chili Mango (so-so).  White: Birthday Cake (yum).  Orange: Centipede (totally nasty).

A couple hours after leaving the jelly bean factory, we were winding through coastal redwoods toward our campground at Mount Madonna.  It was situated at the top of Hecker Pass, with San Jose to the East and Watsonville and the Ocean to the West.  I admit to feeling some trepidation as we pulled into the campground and searched for the yurt we would be calling home for the next four nights.  I have slept in a yurt a couple times before and knew they could be quite nice, but it all depended on their level of upkeep. This was a first for my sister-in-law, but she was optimistic. Quite frankly, I was a bit worried that we'd be sleeping in a filthy, spider-infested hovel, but I hoped for the best.  I'm grateful to say that my worries were for nothing.  Our 24-ft super-sized yurt sat at the far end of a delightful neighborhood of clean, well-maintained, taupe-colored yurts with private wrap-around decks.  The inside of ours had three bunk beds with regular (vinyl-covered) mattresses and a full-sized picnic table with benches.  I breathed a sigh of relief at its near-spotlessness.  It was better than I could have hoped for.

Hard to get much more idyllic than this.

Our spacious 10-person yurt was the perfect affordable accommodation.

Morning mist hung in the Redwood canopy.

Mount Madonna is a haven for people and animals alike.

We loved our fantastic yurt village.

We made ourselves at home, visited the equally clean and amenable bathrooms and showers nearby (with real flush toilets and sinks), and started prepping for dinner.  Another first on this trip revolved around our food.  In all the extensive camping my sister-in-law has done, she never ate MRE-style freeze-dried camping meals.  She decided she wanted to give it a go, mostly because she liked the idea of not having dishes to clean.  So, we loaded up on meal packs like Mac 'n Cheese, Curry and Vegetables, and Blueberry Cheesecake from the Sportsmen's Warehouse back in Redding.  Her first choice that night in the yurt was Mountain House Chicken and Rice loaded into flour tortillas.  Mine was Turkey Tetrazini with rice chips on the side.  We supplemented with fresh fruits and veggies brought from home and it felt like a feast!  We even had Starbuck's Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate as an added treat.  Speaking from experience, though, avoid the egg breakfasts.  They just aren't the same as the real thing. The only caveat to the brilliance of this food plan was the amount of water that had to be boiled to reconstitute our meals, plus more for tea and hot cocoa.  The trusty Coleman propane stove and teapot arrangement did its job, but required up to a half hour to get the water boiling, especially if there was breeze.  For anyone wanting to take this route, I suggest investing in a JetBoil, which will heat your water in just a couple minutes.

Sounds good...but they don't all taste good.

The temperature at that elevation, sheltered by the redwoods, was at least 20 degrees cooler than in Redding.  By the time dusk settled, we were wearing all the layers we had and were snuggling into our beds for extra warmth.  Even with two blankets and a comforter on me, my feet refused to get warm.  Fearing a cold and sleepless night, I invited my hot-blooded son to share the full-sized mattress with me if he promised to try and keep his knees and elbows to himself.  His extra sleeping bag layer and fully-functioning circulatory system kept us toasty all night.  We all drifted to sleep in the pitch darkness of our perfectly faux-rustic accommodations with full bellies, peace of mind, and joyful anticipation for our trip to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk the next day.