Along the Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach to Crystal Cove State Park

Sunset over the Pacific Ocean.


I do love Southern California -- sun, ocean, some mountains, and always some intriguing new thing to catch the eye.

We drove to Crystal Cove shopping mall (near the state park of the same name, just south of Newport Beach) to meet our nephew and his wife and boys for lunch. It being Los Angeles, the 41-mile drive took an hour and a half there, and slightly longer to get back. Driving Hwy 1 is always interesting -- marshes with egrets (white herons?), a few rivers, lots of industrial complexes, plenty of blue ocean and white surf, some districts with barred windows and some with well-off beach homes.

I'm always curious about what all of those pipes and tanks and chimneys and buildings behind the fences are for. Even without knowing the answers, I like the shapes and patterns.

The Long Beach Harbor in the distance, one of the busiest in the U.S. This may be the Los Angeles River -- we didn't have a detailed map.

One of my favorite sights in LA., because it's so unexpected, is an oil well. There were a few dozen of them  in this area, but sometimes there's just one in someone's back yard (they have this phenomenon in other states too).

Three ships. The object that's second from the left is an off-shore drilling platform with a tiny boat (a tug?) next to it - more oil.

The vehicles on the road are often intriguing too, like this Pi truck.

Sculpture near Huntington Beach.



Crystal Cove Promenade is an upscale shopping strip near Crystal Cove State Park. It's so upscale that there are no public restrooms -- you have to be in a store or restaurant. It had fountains (drought? what drought?), a Trader Joe's, and a superb pizza place (Z;s pizza).

California colors and styles -- bright, flowing, drapey.

The flowers were as exotic as the clothes -- this bloom was four inches or more across, and there were dozens of them on vines that grew up the pillars along the length of the mall.

The honeybees love these funky red flowers.

In comparison, the Easter lily no matter how exotic it may be, seems tame.

There were cute dogs, of course.

Z pizza had excellent food, and the Sweet and Saucy Shop nearby had amazing min-cupcakes, tiny tarts, and a few chocolate chip cookies. These are some of our choices.

Alyson White, nephew Paul, and Jim; Drew, Brady, Grant White. We are hoping to see more of them in the next couple of years.

More industry, on the way back to Redondo Beach.

We had time in the evening to walk along Redondo Beach to the pier, and back to the hotel.

There was lots going on -- the Goodyear blimp,

Surfers -- not such big waves yet, but more are forecast in the next few days.

Gulls and their tracks.

Incoming tide - the easy way to get my feet wet in the Pacific.

Surf.

Kids in surf.

Shore birds in surf.

Sailboats.

And Neal -- Neal was here.

The pier had restaurants, pelicans and gulls, artwork, and people enjoying the evening.

A rookery had pelicans, cormorants, and gulls.

There were more cute dogs,

Good views of the surf beating up against the rocks, and

paddle-boarders in a protected area.

Going back, we saw trees on the bluff, with deciduous ones bent away from the ocean by the onslaught of the wind, while the palm trees seem to be fine.

Pattern on top of a wood post.

An amaryllis growing in the ground, at the home of well off people (it was being well watered).

A Carns shadow selfie.

The beach was filling up with people coming after work.

Exotic flowers -- bananas?

Sunset -- we went back to the hotel and got left-overs from lunch, and took our clothes to the laundry next door. Now we are packed and ready to drive back to Menlo Park in the morning.

A pigeon on the pier, quite confident of his place in the Universe.

Life in the fast lanes, or, A day on the LA freeways

Even at 60 mph, we got a few good shots of the California coastline from Highway 1.


It was a true LA day on the freeways -- 2 1/2 hours from Santa Barbara to Redondo Beach, an hour from Redondo Beach to the LA Farmers Market, about 50 minutes from the Farmers Market to Pasadena, another 50 minutes from there back to Redondo Beach, for a total of nearly six hours on the road -- and that was in excellent weather, and good traffic most of the way. For people used to a ten-minute commute to work, and twenty minutes to get from one end of town to the other, it seemed like a lot.

Sunrise in Santa Barbara.

We ate breakfast with cousins Paul and Sandy -- homemade clafuti, blueberry muffins, and fresh-picked strawberries from the garden. They tasted as good as they looked..

Spiderwebs catching the morning sun.

We left them looking ready for another day in Santa Barbara, another pinch-yourself-because-this-can't-be-real blue sky bird-song, sweet breeze, warm sun teasing the scents from the flowers kind of day.

Bird resting between songs. Paul and Sandy's specialties are butterflies and moths, and plants -- none of us were sure what this bird was.

A last view of the Santa Barbara hills before heading down the Pacific Coast Highway.

Pacific Coast Highway, from the car window -- not ideal photo conditions, but the coast is so gorgeous that it hardly matters.

Plastic tents along Highway 1, for growing things that need a more controlled climate.

A California business in Redondo Beach. Note the palm trees behind, and the clean white sedan out front. Clean cars are a striking contrast to anything in Anchorage at this time of the year.


We found our hotel, a small, 1950s-style with units around a courtyard on Highway 1 in Redondo Beach, and rested briefly before setting out for the LA Farmers' Market.

Some of what we found at the Market:

Trays of rooted cuttings from horseradish, that you could take home and plant.

Bright-colored paper lanterns.

Dancing figures for the restroom symbols.

Fruits, exotic and familiar both.

Dogs of every size and description.

People enjoying themselves -- it was mid-afternoon, and quieter than usual.

All sorts of meat, dairy, produce, spices, and food ready to eat.

I ate lunch at the Moishe Village, where a woman created a Boreka to order. She took a ball of flatbread dough, rolled it out, curled up the edges to make a rim, sprinkled it with cheese; arranged red peppers, tomatoes, and fresh broccoli in the middle, garnished with more cheese, and slid it into a brick oven.

The choices of Borekas -- flatbread pizzas -- with meat, mushrooms, plain cheese, and so on. Internet sites describe "boreka" as pastries rather like Greek spanikopita, and these flatbreads as more like Turkish pides, a type of filled pita bread.

Jim waiting patiently for the Boreka to bake.

The finished Boreka, ready to eat.

From the Market we drove to Pasadena to meet a nephew and his wife for dinner. The route led past shiny downtown LA.

Pasadena side street, with rich green grass and trees, well-kept sidewalk.

Trimmings from palm trees along the sidewalk.

Exotic plant in Pasadena.

Statice blooming vigorously.


We ate dinner at Briganti in Pasadena -- excellent food. It's worth noting that it is right across from a police and fire station, and the trucks and police cars went out on at least half a dozen calls. The sirens and alarms provided a very urban background for the Italian dishes.

A last look at Market bounty -- four avocados for $5.