Vanlife Camping on a Seaside Cliff | Made a Seafood Feast

If I was a billionaire, my house would be right here. Somewhere right in this cove, just overlooking that. And we've got this amazing view up here of the California coast. Sea Route 1 winding all the way down those mountains. But this meal with this view for $60. Three crab legs, corn, shrimp, lobster, oysters, scallops. Versus the other day I got three pieces of crab, three claws of an Alaskan snow crab for $200. Another episode of Living in a Van with Ryan. And if you're new here, my name is Ryan. I live out of the back of my self-converted camper van, which I've been doing for the last three years. When you live on the road full-time, like I do, your browser becomes your office, your radio, and your creative hub. Which is why I made the switch to Opera to make my life easier. Opera is a lightweight, distraction-free browser built for focus. And it has a ton of cool features like this floating music player that integrates with my favorite streaming services and can be dragged anywhere, even outside of the browser. So I can control my music without breaking my workflow. Like when I'm planning my trips. And with the split-screen feature, I can just drag my tab down and split the screen. I'll have my notes on one side and maps and interesting locations on the other, which is way easier than juggling a ton of windows. And when I've inevitably got 20 tabs open, which I do often, tab islands keep me organized by allowing me to group them by context. YouTube stuff here, new gear shopping here, trip planning in another, and I can also expand or collapse these islands to keep my workspace neat. Also, with tab traces, subtle underscores show which tabs I've used most recently. The darker the line, the more recent the visit was, which is perfect when you're trying to find that article about the world's largest pistachio that you were just reading. I can also keep everything customized how I like it. The colors, sounds, and even animated themes. My current favorite is Interstellar, but if I'm ever feeling any different, I can easily switch it with this slider and have it just the way I like it. But the real game changer is ARIA, Opera's built-in AI. And with a quick command backslash, I can research video ideas, summarize notes, or generate images from a prompt, like van life camping on a city street at night. I even used it last week to create a thumbnail concept. It helps to streamline tasks and make me more efficient. Also, its image recognition is perfect for analyzing screenshots. So whether I'm planning my next trip, editing, or just jamming out to some music, Opera keeps everything simple. And the best part is it is completely free. So if you want to upgrade your browser, click the link in my description and give Opera a try for yourself. But today we woke up at a Planet Fitness. Out here in what I think this town is called Salinas. We've been hanging out by the beach for a few days. And today was the first day that I was able to get a workout in the morning without having to drive more than 30 minutes. So it was nice to park here. We slept here last night in this parking lot. It was nice to wake up and just be able to walk in the gym and not have to drive 30 or 40 minutes to get to one. And this Planet Fitness just so happens to be 24 hours, so that's not what I want. You can go into the gym and use the bathroom whenever you want. So that's nice. But since being at the beach for so long, and since my last seafood experience getting crab legs that I was very excited for was not what I expected it to be, I've been craving good seafood ever since. And I really don't want to risk going to another restaurant and being disappointed. $190 for this. It's only two crab legs. And since we're at the beach, that means there's a ton of fish markets. Well, I guess not a ton, but there's enough fish markets and fresh fish and fresh seafood that we can just go buy our own and do it ourselves. So, first stops of the day before we go anywhere else are fish markets. Starting with Phil's Fish Market. Welcome to Castorville, which according to the sign that I just drove past is the artichoke capital of the world. Which is interesting because every time I'm driving down the road and I'm driving by farms, I always try to guess what is growing at that farm. And there were some strawberry farms. And I thought it was butter lettuce, but I guess it's artichoke. I don't know, but Castorville is apparently the artichoke center of the world, according to the signs. That's where we're going, Phil's Fish Market and Eatery. I'm hoping they have a good selection. I got one more fish market that I could check out down the road in Monterey. Back to where we were in my last video. But there's a lot of traffic going through Monterey, so I'm trying to avoid it if I can. I have no plan for what exactly I want to do with all the seafood that I'm going to get. Other than cook all of it and have myself a seafood feast. Phil's Fish Market and Eatery. Hopefully they have all of the seafood that I want. Alright, let's see what they got. A lot of fish. Some of this. I think I'm going to do that. This, and then can I get three of the Dungeness crab legs. And then maybe ten of those shrimp. Whatever that weighs out to be. Or the prawn. The medium. And then for the oysters, do you sell them by singles or how do you sell those? We sell them by the dozen, but you can also sell them separately. Can I do six of those as well? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm okay, thank you. Have a good one. Got everything we need. Anyways, they didn't have snow crab legs, but we got some Dungeness crab legs. Which are good too, but way less expensive. So maybe it's a little better than getting the king crab legs anyways. Perfect amount of food. Seafood feast for one later tonight. I'm going to leave this lobster tail, since it's fully frozen. Wherever it is. I'm going to leave this out to thaw out in the sink. Jesus. Today. Hopefully it thaws out by the time we cook. I don't know. But everything else can just go in the fridge. There we go. So, I think we got everything we need. Got about an hour drive down the coast. And hopefully some more beautiful scenic areas. Where we can hopefully find somewhere to camp tonight. Goodbye, Artichoke capital of the world. So this is the beautiful Route 1 in California. It's been closed, or at least in some form or another partially closed for the last couple years. So you haven't been able to drive the entirety of Route 1 in, I don't know, I think it's been three or four years. Since it's been fully open from beginning to end. It runs from Southern California all the way up to the north. With scenic views pretty much the entire way down it. Of seaside cliffs and mountains. It's supposed to be one of the most scenic drives in the entire world. At least in my opinion. I've done it once before. I want to do it again. I think if it's open next summer, I might come back down here and do the entirety of Route 1. From start to finish, if they can get it open. But it always closes because there's landslides and the road is built into the side of a cliff on the ocean. So there's just always things that are keeping it closed. But we can drive about 40 or 50 miles, I think south on Route 1 from Monterey. Before we get to the section where it's closed. So we're heading down to Big Sur. I'm gonna see if I can find somewhere to get lunch. And then hopefully we can find a nice cliffside spot to park and camp for the night. But we'll see, it's pretty busy out this weekend. What's up buddy? Hey buddy, how's it going? So we made it to Big Sur. Very busy day out here in Monterey, Big Sur, Route 1. A lot of events going on this weekend. But just drove by this general store and some places where we can get some food. So we're gonna go see what we can get into. This is probably pretty good for these businesses that there's so many people here. Because they've probably been struggling for a while with the lack of business because of the roads being closed. Cool little sights out on the river. You can sit and eat your food there. I'm gonna go see what I can get for a little snack. It's pretty cool, they got an ice cream school bus. The barbecue chicken, is that like a sandwich or is that just like a piece of chicken? It's chicken. I'll get one of those. Sure. Thank you. It would be so embarrassing if I fell in right here. Nice spot for some lunch. I wasn't able to get a chair for myself. They got some chairs down in the river back that way. But over here I got the whole river privately to myself and my own little rock. I also got a half chicken barbecue with some coleslaw for lunch. This is gonna be such a mess to eat. That looks good though, look at that. Oh my god. That is fantastic. Just falling off the dome. And the barbecue sauce is really good. Honestly though, my favorite kind of barbecue sauce is Carolina barbecue sauce. I like how sweet and tangy it is. This is kind of almost a little bit similar to that. But I'm definitely not gonna eat this whole thing because I've got a big dinner planned for tonight. I just needed a little snack to hold me over. And this seemed like the perfect spot for a little lunch break on our road trip. Also it does suck that this road hasn't been opened for three years in its entirety because of the landslides. But what can you really expect when you build a road on the side of a cliff that's prone to landslides? You kind of just gotta expect it when you do something like that. But it is crazy how beautiful the state of California is. So there's one more spot I want to stop by before we go see if we can find somewhere on this road to camp tonight. Should be a pretty cool spot too. Alright so there was no markings on the road. And I don't know if this is actually it. I think this is it. But I don't have service to look it up. There's supposed to be a waterfall down that way that you can hike to. So we're gonna go see if we can see that before we find our spot to stick around for the night. And it is midday so it's not ideal but I think I'm gonna try to take out the nice camera. See if we can get a couple cool pictures. And then hopefully wherever we camp tonight we have a nice view so I can take some pictures in the sunset. If we don't get covered with fog again which this area is notorious for. I guess there is a sign. It's just pointed this way. It's right there. It's pointed this way not the way I was coming from. I don't know if this is the trail though. And it says trail but it doesn't look like the best of trails. Maybe there's another way. This just doesn't feel right. Looks like the trail down there is closed. We have a waterfall available at turnout. So we gotta go up the road a little bit. Maybe we'll get a good view of it. And this is pretty much the last stop that we can make on this road. Because I think we just drove by a sign maybe two and a half miles ago that said five more miles down. Route one is where the closure is. So this is pretty much the end of the road for as far south as you can drive. And it sucks because there's no inlet or outlet. So you can't just drive down to here, cut through the mountains, and then be back out of here. The only thing you can do is turn around and drive back the exact same way you came in to where we were. And then you can go around the mountains. And then on the south side, there is one cut through of the mountains but it's a super windy, super sketchy road. So it kind of just, in both directions, it's just a drive up, turn around. But look at this water. That is stunning. If I was a billionaire, my house would be right here. Somewhere right in this cove just overlooking that blue water. I thought the waterfall was supposed to be right there. Maybe I'm wrong though. But it looks like the old hiking viewing platform where you used to be able to do it. Which again, what this area is prone to, has slid off into the sea. So you can't go down there anymore. That's crazy how blue that water is. And I think you can just see the waterfall. It's actually on the other side of the rock right there. So cool. That would be the ultimate shower spot. But I'm going to see if I can get some cool photos with this real quick. I wonder why it's so much bluer right here than it is out there. It's not like it's clear. You can't even see the bottom. I don't know what's causing that. Maybe it's the fresh water coming in. Who knows. That marine layer off in the distance looks sick though. It's nice that it's staying just offshore. Anyways, we are heading back to the van now. And I'm going to go find somewhere. I think I drove by a spot back there that looked perfect for hanging out. I don't know if I can camp there. But at the very least we can stay there, cook dinner, hang out, and then find somewhere. Maybe drive back into town to camp tonight. But at least we can cook dinner with a nice view. But I will see you guys when we get there. Definitely not a bad spot to be cooking a meal. Look at that view. It's just incredible. And the best part is the van is mostly flat where we sit. So I've got it kind of perfectly angled up here to where the back tire is kind of on this berm. So it sits nice and flat or far enough off the road where I don't feel worried about it. And we've got this amazing view up here of the California coast. See Route 1 winding all the way down those mountains. It's pretty cool. These back doors open. Full view. Out the back too. Look at that. That is crazy. And our lobster tail has thawed out nicely. Beautiful. But I've been driving all day so I think since I got my Starlink set up so I finally have service. Because most of this road you don't have much service. I'm just going to hang out. Relax with the view for a little bit. Then we're cooking. Alright it is getting to that time of night where it is time to start cooking dinner. I got all the ingredients out on my desk. Let's get to cooking. So first things first we're going to get everything prepped up. I think. Hopefully. I'm just doing a little bit of veggie chopping off the bat. Starting with some green onions. Some parsley. We can set those aside in their bowl. Take our corn. Shuck that. I think that's what you call it. Shucking corn. Just made those little hairs off. Corn cob hairs. We can chop that into a few pieces. And now that that's done we can move on to prepping some of our meat. So the only thing we really need to prep is the shrimp. And the lobster tail. Unfortunately I do not have scissors which I need to do this. So we're going to have to do this kind of the harder way. And we're basically just taking this lobster tail and we're going to cut it from the front of the shell here all the way to the back right before the tail starts. Get a nice cut down the middle. It's easier with shears because you can just snip all the way down. But I'm going to use my knife and hopefully that works. Seems to be a little difficult. Alright I'm going to figure out how to cut this and then I'll get back to you. Alright we got it. So we cut it down the back. We lifted the meat up out of the shell a little bit. So that is all good to go. Now we just got to peel and devein all of these shrimp. And that should be most of the prep work that we have to do. I'm sure there's going to be a little bit more. But I don't think there's anything we can't do as we go. Oh I think these are already deveined. That's nice. So all we got to do is peel these shrimp. These flies are loving this raw seafood. There's so much space to fly. Why do you got to fly right in my face? It's like these flies have the entire world. They can fly anywhere they want. But they choose to buzz the tower three inches from my nose. There we go. Let's bring the crab over here. As well as our scallops. And that my friends is our seafood feast. For one on the ocean. So for cooking we're going to start off with our shrimp. Because that is going to be a chilled dish. Get a pot up there. Get some water in the pot. Just enough that we can cover the shrimp. We're going to cook the corn in the same pot. So I'm going to add a little bit of extra water. Just to make sure that we're covered. And all we got to do is wait. For that to come to a boil. Also to this water while we wait for it to boil. We're going to add a few lemon slices. As well as some real salt. Salt that water up. So now that our water is boiling. We can add in our shrimp. And let those cook for just around three to five minutes. And while we wait for those to cook. We're going to get started on our crab legs. So I don't have a grate to raise these. To steam these in this pan. So what I did is I folded up some tin foil. Which I'm going to put down in the pan as a base. Add some water. And then we can put our crab legs on top of our little beds of tin foil. So they're not sitting directly in the water. We can turn the fire on there. Get that heat going. Cover those and we'll steam those for right around seven-ish minutes. And you can see this shrimp has only been in here for like a minute. And it's already cooking up. So that's good. So then the last thing we got to do is our lobster tail. So we're using the full cook top tonight for this meal. It's a pretty easy meal. But there's just a lot of different pieces of it. So it seems like it's going to be a little bit more than it actually is. It's really not that bad. But actually before we do the lobster. We're going to make our garlic butter. Because that's going to go on top of it. So I got this small little pot. We're going to melt up some butter. Squeeze a little bit of garlic in there. And just let that melt down. And this little pot should keep the butter nice and warm and melted. Until it's ready to be used on everything hopefully. But I don't know. We'll see. There we go. Just like that. The butter is done. Go ahead and set that aside for now. We can warm it up more if we need to in the future. These shrimps are just about done too. So go ahead. Take those out. Set those aside. Then we're going to take these and pop them in the fridge. And let them cool down in time to eat. Hopefully. Doesn't really matter I guess. And then to this same water that we cooked our shrimp in. We're going to add our corn. And let that boil. For right around another seven minutes. Crab is steaming up nicely. And now we can move on. To the lobster. So for the lobster we're just going to add. A little bit of oil to the pan. As well as. Some butter. Throw that in there. Let that get nice and hot. In the bottom of the pan there. And while we wait for that pan to get hot. We're going to season up our scallops. And I'm just going to do. A pretty simple seasoning for the scallops. Toss them on there. Lobster as well. We're going to do salt. And pepper. And that's it for the scallops. I think that pan is nice and hot. So we're going to take our. Lobster. Place it. Flesh side down. In that pan. And we'll let that cook. For right around. Two to three minutes. Get a nice color on the top. And then we're pretty much. Going to do the same thing. With the crab legs. And just steam it the rest of the way. At least that's the idea. And we're also going to cook. The scallops. In the exact same pan. That we're doing the lobster in. Just because it's easy. So we'll get those in there as well. With the lobster. And you can go ahead. And flip that lobster roll over. And it is looking. Absolutely beautiful. And we'll let that cook. On the other side. I'm going to add some water. Once these scallops. Are done searing up. I'm going to add some water. To the pan. And let this. Lobster tail steam. For a little bit as well. Alright. And these bad boys. Are just about done. Those will be set over here. On our eating plate. Covered up. So we're ready to eat. So now for this lobster. Add a splash of water. And I'm going to see. If I can get this covered. I don't think I can get it fully covered. But at least somewhat. Let that steam for like. Five or six minutes. And then we'll go back. To steaming the crab. And there we go. I think. Everything is just about done. Perfect timing. Cover these crabs up. A little bit longer. Let them warm. Thoroughly through. Get that fire turned up. But now we can plate. This delicious looking meal. Starting with. Big old piece of lobster. Piece of corn. We've got our shrimp appetizer. With some cocktail sauce. I put them pretty. I put. I arranged them around this. Sauce dish. Because I thought it looked pretty. We can take our crab legs. Throw those on there. And then the final piece. Is to just take this butter. And absolutely douse. Our stuff in it. Our legs. Maybe not our shrimp. Our corn. Everything is getting a healthy layer of butter. All over it. Reserve some of that for dipping. And then I wish. They had it out here on the west coast. But they do not. Old Bay. It's the best seasoning for crabs. In my opinion. It's not just because I'm coming from the east coast. It is by far the best seasoning. But. We'll just use this. Cajun seasoning. It's a little spicy. So I'm not going to use a lot. Get some of that on the crabs. Top everything off with a little more fresh parsley. And that my friends. Is a seafood feast. On the ocean. I'll get this in the light. Hopefully I don't spill on my bed. Get you some money shots. Look at that. I'm going to risk it. And take you guys outside. To get the money shot. And I almost forgot. I did get some oysters. So I shucked those. Just off camera. While I was getting cleaned up a little bit. Oh look at that. Look at that view. Plate full of seafood. Crabs. Lobsters. Corn. And an amazing view. Does it get much better? I don't know. But. I am starving. This looks absolutely delicious. So. Without further ado. Cheers. I've never made lobster before. It's interesting the way you cook it. But. I'm going to go ahead and rip this meat out of here. Because why not. Look at that. It's so much more meat with a lobster. Than you do with a crab. Good thing this is all. Oh look at that. Mostly finger food. Man that's good. So much flavor. So much butter. In every bite. Beautiful looking scallop. I love scallops too. I wish I had some crab claw breakers. Beautiful. Oh. I love crab. I'm making an absolute mess of my table though. But. This. Meal. With this view. For $60. Three crab legs. Corn. Shrimp. Lobster. Oysters. Scallops. For $60. Versus the other day I got three. Pieces of crab. Three claws. Of an Alaskan snow crab. For $200. This beats that. 100% of the time. But. Anyways. You guys don't have to watch me make a mess of myself. Any more than you already have. I'm gonna tear this plate apart. Eat every last piece of it. I will see you guys. On the other side. Alright so I just. Absolutely decimated that plate. Also I've been surrounded by. A bunch of cars. I fear I'm ruining their photo shoot. There's a bunch of them. I hope I'm not ruining their photo shoot. If they need me to move maybe they'll. Move and ask me but. Sunset is kicking in looking. Fantastic. Cannot beat it. I'm gonna take the camera out again. See if I can get some pictures. Deal with that later. I mean genuinely. Who's got a. Better seat for sunset. Than this. It's a little bright coming through that door but. Still can't complain. And it's like a perfect temperature outside. Nice and cool. But I am so stuffed. I've never eaten so fast in my life. What a fantastic dinner. Fantastic spot. Honestly I don't know if I'm allowed to stay here though. So I might drive into town after the sunset. It's only like 20-25 minutes. So it's not too bad. So I was sitting here. Taking pictures. On my nice camera. Watching the sunset. And. One of the people with their cars came over. And was like. Do you have Wi-Fi? And I was like yeah. I got my Starlink set up. And they were like. Can I use it? My car broke down. And I need to get a tow. And there's no service out here. So I let them use my Wi-Fi. And now they're getting a. Tow truck. So good thing I was here. But. Just look at this. Out the back. Vans all nice and clean. Absolutely beautiful. Look at that sunset. It's just. Spectacular. I get to be here. Cook the food I do. Live the life I do. Which never gets old. Well. That's a lie. Sometimes it gets old. Sometimes I hate being in the van. And then sometimes I love it. Just like anything else. But tonight. Just so happens to be a night that I love it. Do think though that I'm gonna. Head back into town tonight to. Sleep because. There's just too many people out here. And it's just too much. Kind of staying out. And I just don't feel like getting woken up. In the middle of the night. By cars. And or. Someone driving by and being like. You can't stay here. So. I'm gonna enjoy the rest of the sunset. And then head out of here. Find somewhere to camp. So. As always. I truly appreciate you guys watching. If you haven't already. Think about clicking that subscribe button. It really does. Help out the channel. And me in the van. Catch you guys. In the next one.