Welp, our plans were thwarted twice in as many days.
On Saturday, we’d planned to explore the lower portion of Big Sur and see the elephant seals. On our way, though, our brakes decided to poop out on us! Luckily, we had just come off the interstate so we were moving fairly slowly and were able to safely coast to a stop on the side of the road. Thankfully, my parents give my siblings and I each a AAA plus membership every year for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad!) so we called AAA and a character named Rick towed us into a repair shop in San Luis Obispo.
4 hours and a pretty penny later, we had a new vacuum pump and several new belts, and were on our way again.
We abandoned our plans for Big Sur and headed straight to Ventura. We found a quiet spot by the beach and tucked into our truck bed.
Yesterday, we were supposed to visit Channel Islands National Park. Yet again, we were thrown off course, this time by something the Spanish settlers called “caliente aliento de Satanás” (which translates to “Hot breath of Satan”); we basic white folks call these the Santa Ana winds, though I think the “hot breath of Satan” is way more dramatic and thus, far better. The winds were forecasted to come in so hard that all ferry shuttles to the islands were cancelled. Womp womp.
So, instead of exploring the islands, we wandered the beaches and piers of Ventura and Santa Barbara, including a quick photo stop at the biggest and oldest fig tree in the USA.
Since we had extra time today, we made plans to meet one of AC’s basketball ops friends for lunch in LA. On our way out of Ventura, we stopped at a farmers market and picked up some delicious dried figs, peaches, and fig & honey yogurt–when in California, eat figs like the Californian’s do!
As we were walking to lunch in LA, we almost ran into a delivery robot named Jabilay (we ran into another bot named Ellen on the next block)! An actual robot that delivers food for Door Dash, Grub Hub, etc. We definitely gave ourselves a way as tourist by losing our cool and taking photos of Jabi. That’s ok, though, we had already tagged ourselves as out-of-towners earlier that afternoon when we waved to a car that let us merge into their lane. No one around here waves or shows appreciation or, apparently, knows how to smile. No one, that is, except us southerners.
After lunch with our friend, we took a short drive down Hollywood Blvd so I could glimpse the red carpet at the famous Chinese Theater (where all the film premiers are hosted). Added bonus: I also caught a quick glimpse of the Hollywood sign between buildings–too quick for a photo, but we weren’t about to fight traffic to get a closer look. Holy traffic, Batman!
LA: been there, done that, don’t need to go back.
We ended the night in Newport Beach, a posh little beach town about 2 hours south of LA. And would you believe it took pretty much those entire 2 hours for us to escape LA traffic?! We found a good spot for the truck, whipped up a dinner of salad with shrimp, and took a walk on the beach before calling it a night.
Until next time,
Charli