Interesting Pismo Beach Trip / Report

I was surprised to find that driving on the beach was allowed, let alone camping at Pismo Beach. Back in 1970 I had a 1965 VW factory camper so a friend of mine, his wife and very young daughter decided that we'd like to spend a night alongside the ocean listening to the waves lull us to sleep. I was a young 21 year old with no experience whatsoever to guide me here. I had traveled the entire west coast from Mexico to the Northwest Territories living in the van for about a year at that point. I had never camped nor driven on a beach however. We found the ramp heading down to the sand and simply drove down it, turned back towards the grass line and dunes and found a spot to "camp". Not only did I not consult a tide chart, I totally forgot about the concept completely. So here we were, sitting at our little dining table having dinner watching the beauty of the setting sun and the frolicing seagulls. I noticed a jogger going by giving us a curious look and after passing us, he turned back and jogged back to our little rig. He seemed a bit surprised and embarrassed to ask us if we knew that the tide was coming in. He pointed to the grass line behind us and said "you do know that's the waterline, right ?" Suddenly, I remembered what tides were and looked up to see the waves that had been about 40 yards from the front of the van to a point where they were now about 15 yards away. Boy, talk about a mad scramble. In short order we had secured everything and were headed back to the ramp leading up to the road. Waves were already lapping above the lower edge of the ramp and I knew that I'd have to drive out into the water somewhat in order to turn back left to go up the ramp. Just like adamis, I had to time what I perceived to be my one and only chance at this by timing it perfectly between the waves hitting the ramp in order to make it up the ramp at all. As the great RV Gods smiled down on us, we chugged desperately with a half drowned engine up the fairly steep ramp successfully. If it wasn't for that helpful jogger we probably would have been washed out to sea. Or if he had jogged by even 1 or 2 minutes later, the result would have been the same. Need I say ... Lesson learned !