Your "Daily" Distraction: El Morro Bay's Temporary Ghost Town

El Morro Bay's Temporary Ghost Town

The line where the sand meets the surf extended into the distance meeting the base of a sea cliff. That cliff marks the beginning of Laguna Beach. High atop that slowly eroding sliver of rock are multimillion dollar beach homes. As the eyes move back down to the sand we were treading on a line of smaller buildings can be discerned. In the distance the buildings, shoved against the rocky hill, looked like a mirage.

End of the Line In Sight for El Morrow Mobile Homes

Strolling cautiously closer, the glare from the sand dulls to reveal a line of mobile homes stretching off into the distance. Quite beach front bungalows, trailers with attached decks, spaced so close to one another that they appear to be one long massive compound. The silence that greets us is cut softly by the rhythmic crashing of wave on the sandy shore. The only objects cutting the wind blowing of the ocean are ourselves and the empty decks. Lonely window faces were the only thing staring out to the Pacific.

Coastal Panel's Vote Doom Trailer Park At Crystal Cove

Standing at the beginning of this row of vacant homes I wonder what happened. A still energy pervades the area, as if these homes are awaiting the return of their owners or someone to take them over. It felt more desolate and sad than the other areas of summer homes I have had the chance to visit. Peering over the decks of the first few units it was difficult to discern what had happened. Stray patio furniture and overturned BBQ pits were among the fishing gear and surfboard. Packages of food could be seen on the counters and in the opened cupboards.

Seaside Trailer Park Residents End Long Dispute

The first indicator of something being more amiss then a late summer start was the stairwells. Yanked from their permanent housings in the deck, they had been tossed onto the deck. The easiest path for anyone to return home severed like a mooring from a ship. It was more extreme than a simple tactic to stop a vandal.

But vandals find other ways to do their damage and leave their mark as broken windows being to punctuate the row of trailers.

Beachfront Tenants Lose Suit; Evictions Set

Between the homes graffiti, the other calling card of a common troublemaker, begins to tag the walls. Instead of the odd signatures that are the testament to a skilled tagger the walls bear the semblance of actual writing.

Morro Residents Get 1-Day Extension

A mixture of sadness and anger scrolled along the boards tell a story of losing a private place to enjoy the Pacific. To the casual passerby the destruction looked to be the work of the hidden visitors.

"El Morro will be in our hearts Forever & In Heaven"

Closer examination reveals a collective of people leaving their last mark on a life and place they were forced to abandon.

We will miss this house. OUR HOME!!

The danger of residing on public land is that eventually the private world someone creates will disappear. In its wake is disillusionment. Such is the case with El Morro Bay Mobile Home Park, an area of beauty transferred from one corporate entity to the State of California. , who slowly tugged the rug out from under the residents who had been there for decades.

“What the hell is that?” my companion asks pointing to a bloated, brown object under the deck of one of the homes. A real dead body populates this ghost town in the form of the rotting carcass of a seal. One imagines that this fellow lover of the Pacific knew that its time had come. Struggling out of the waves one last time it found a safe place to collapse one last time.

That is the only explanation for how far it ended up from the shore. Well beyond the high tide line with no sign of dragging, the seal had become an accidental metaphor of the end of an era for the El Morro Bay Mobile Home Park. Either that or the spirit animal of the residents of El Morro had come home to rest.

Reaching the end of the row of trailers we turn, walking back from where we came. The setting sun bathes our faces in its warm, blinding light as we pass the eerily quiet trailers one more time. Following in the footsteps of the former residents of El Morro Bay we took one more look back and left never to return again.