We are leaving LA today and heading south to San Diego (again!), but this time following the coastline.
The sun is out and the sky is blue... We drive through Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach while everybody's still sleeping and nothing much is happening around. We enter Orange County and suddenly we are engulfed by fog. Fog so thick that at times it makes it hard to see where we are going. It's a strange phenomenon too: the fog raises from the ocean and drives inland but just enough to wrap the lane of Hwy 1 we are on, driving south, the rest to the left of us is in the sun. We can clearly see the hills and the residential areas perched on them. We don't see the ocean nor the beaches. We continue through Long Beach, Huntington Beach (aka Surf City USA) and Newport Beach. The first is commercial, the second is packed with surfers with their wet suits halfway up (or down based on how you see it) either to show off their taut and tanned bodies or their broad shoulders, the latter is the most sophisticated of them all. The houses around all look identical, brand new and although pretty and neatly disposed, they don't have any personality to speak of.
Laguna Beach, is lesser known but I find it more attractive than its northern counterparts, especially around Dana Point, where the neat houses become true mansions with distinctive features and architectonic flavors. As the fog dissipates and we start enjoying the coast, we hit Hwy that takes us more inland to San Clemente. Little, cute San Clemente sits on a hilltop and offers stunning views of the coast and the ocean. Oceanside is already in San Diego County, and here the beaches are nicer (at least to me), especially between Carlsbad and Encinitas. We had hoped to find a spot in San Elijo State Beach, still about 20 miles away from San Diego, but the campground is full and we need to drive closer to the city. We would have preferred to stay on the beach and drive the Vespa into town... Solana Beach and Del Mar, just north of La Jolla, are very nice neighborhoods, the houses here are even more "daring" in their architecture, some of them are real jewels. we find a campground in La Mesa, 12 miles inland of San Diego, and we get there just in time to call it the day. |