Camping with Car #002: Tsuruga Bay

The best thing to come out of the locked down pandemic years was getting my wife to like camping and the outdoors just a little. The idea of being outside the house more than necessary during the height of it all was one of anxiety. Eventually, cabin fever won out and my wife agreed to try camping. That wasn't so bad it seems, as last year when we were buying our new car, the ability to use it as a mini-RV was a huge requirement. Since getting the Daihatsu Atrai, I've been camping with it 10 times or so. I'd only ever been with my wife once, though. So, it was with a lot of excitement that we made our way to Tsuruga Bay this last weekend with dreams of roasted marshmallows and star-flecked skies.

Along Tsuruga Bay is Matsubara Park. It's a sandy beach wide enough to play volleyball, set up tents, grill. It's very laissez faire, so long as you don't do anything dumb and you stay away from the trees. The parking lot is situated so that you can see out into the bay from the driver's seat. At night, the Port of Tsuruga glows in the distance. Clear nights bring spectacular views of the constellations. None of it requires a reservation or permission to use of any kind.

We arrived around 5:30pm. We backed the car in so the back door opened up toward the ocean. I set to cooking dinner on a small gas stove sat atop a makeshift table in the back of the car while my wife set up chairs and a small table outside. The menu was simple: whitebait and vegetable ajillo with baguette; miso-glazed mature-hen meat; and a risotto-like dish full of kimchi and homegrown Swiss Chard. It was delicious magma.

Zosui, a risotto-like dish, filled with veg.

The salty breeze off the bay was cool and relaxing. All around us barbecuers from inside and outside of Fukui drank, ate, and sang happily. As evening sank in, people appeared with fishing lines and headlamps. They'd walk down to the edge of the water only to appear 20 minutes later with a fresh squid dangling from a hook.

Small waves folded over each other, the sound joining in with conversations happening around us to form soothing white noise. Perhaps sensing how chill we were and wanting in on the action, mosquitoes and other bugs began to dance around. This my wife could not abide, so we packed up and moved inside.

Here is where the trouble began.

Part of the reason we hadn't been car-camping in so long was the weather. Things get really cold in the winter and super hot in the summer. There's a lot to be done in the winter. In the summer, though, you open the windows and hope the breeze gets you through. The nights and mornings have been comfortably cool as of late, but on this day we were experiencing a return to summer form. It was 29 degrees (84.2F) outside the car, 31(87.8F) inside. We started watching Modern Family on the iPad, but after an episode, I was so sweaty I needed to change.

Tsuruga Bay as it appeared from our spot on the beach.

We were melting. We were melting and festivities outside were only getting more lively. It became clear that this would not be a night of peaceful, restorative sleep followed by early morning ocean views.

"Oh, well,"my wife said. "Let's try again next month when it's cooler and the beach isn't so crowded."

"Let's at least get some ramen before we go home," I offered.

So, we swang by one of the few remaining ramen trucks on the main strip in Tsuruga and headed back home. I'm still so heart broken that I've only unloaded a quarter of our gear from the car.

Do you have any favorite camping spots? Let me know here or @naturalfukui on Twitter and Instagram.