every night- Was A Saturday Night

Hate the Orange Curtain?  Crystal Cove State Park and Beach will change that.

Crystal Cove beach is one of the earliest beach communities in Southern California.  Since the 1920s, families from all around the LA area would drive down to the area north of Laguna and CAMP out ALL summer long!
      "It Started every Memorial Day Weekend: families from all over Southern California loaded trailers and trucks with wooden frames, large sheets of canvas, butane stoves, refrigerators, cots, portable beds, and lots of other items needed to live away from home for three months.  It was difficult to explain to neighbors where we were going and how we were going to live all summer at the beach.  Driving down the highway we looked like something out of Grapes of Wrath."  Mike Fenderson from Crystal Cove Cottages
     Some families set up tents, some built shacks- no permits, just true rustic mostly one-room cabins with real palm roofs.  In 1917, a black and white version of Treasure Island was filmed there and when they re-created Polynesian tropical foliage, they left all the set and greenery behind which thrived and grew to create a miniature jungle.  The huts were left behind and became residence to some.  In 1927 a 287-foot Schooner ship wrecked on Balboa Point and the lumber washed into the cove.  Thus turning the make-shift tents into sturdier homes built from the scavenged wood.
       The eclectic mix of residents were comprised of all walks of life-from the wealthy to engineers, to artists, to blue-collar, to doctors, to film industry craftspeople to entrepreneurs all having the same goal- to escape the concerns of modern life.
   After WWII the camps became bigger and more organized with modern day conveniences.  The tents took all day to put up with pipe foundations with floors, some carpeted, furnished, all wired for electricity for fridges, hot plates, and lights.  Although most of the true camping spirit was removed, living the new living still required ingenuity and a need not-to-impress the neighbors.   Year after year, most the residents were the same people going to their "second home" and even some people stayed year round.  As time went on, the  next generations did the same thing every summer but no one ever "owned the land."
     In 1979, the California State purchased the land, declared the ramshackle cottages historical landmarks and gave the tenants 22 years to "move out" by 2001.  Shockingly the State decided not to build a resort but instead to make the area a place for anyone to stay.   Slowly but surely they are re-modeling the 46 cottages and the outcome is picture perfect.  Since most of the cottages were literally shacks, the remodeling process still continues but you can stay in one of the 16 or so cottages that are already finished.   These places are insane!
     Right on the sand, in your own private cove.   And the water!  Ahhhhh!  Remodeled clean and minimal with sparse color- restaurant and bar foot steps away!  There is a catch.  Reservations are made 7 months in advance (so you reserve July in January) and can only be made two ways.  In person the 1st of the month (people line up) and on-line the 1st of the month- both at 8am sharp.   Most of the cottages average $180 a night- no kiding.
    As I read through the book below, it starts with saying, "...Every night was a Saturday night."