It may never happen that I win the lottery or that Putin leans toward Democracy, but I checked with my brother and his extended family to see if they never spent money locally at dining, grocery stores, hardware stores, and gas stations while camping at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. Each family spent an average of $100 per day while at the dunes. His children and grandchildren all learned to ride there; he and his friends and friends’ families have spent a week there for the last 40 years. It is a unique experience camping, riding, swimming. It is family time, a place where they have many family memories.
The park itself is smaller now; riders can no longer go as far down the beach or as deep into the dunes. Three to 4 miles of beach out of 840 miles of California coastline. It is a place for kids to learn to ride, to be outside, to play well with others in a unique environment; there is nowhere else like it. A receptacle for kids’ wild side, and I think they need that—to get away from the computers, phones, and TV.
What of the tourists who come to ride on the dunes for a few hours but don’t camp—surely they stay in town, eat in town. And how can you tell by looking that these people in the restaurants are from the dunes or not? I don’t know what the tourist contribution to the town is and I don’t think Evelyn Delaney knows either, and using words like never is unreasonable (“Oceano Dunes’ economic impact on SLO County is lower than some what us to believe,” Sept. 14). The real impact of closing the dunes is that our children lose another place where they can be free, learn to ride, interact, and enjoy a sport.
Joyce Bauerle
Atascadero
This article appears in Oct 5-12, 2023.