We are staying at the Sea Shore Motel on Main Street in Santa Monica. While snow storms hit the East coast here it has been beautiful weather reaching up to 77F (25C). I love the fact that America has kept to farenheit, miles, pounds and ounces, while we in Britain have gone out of way to try to lose them.
Santa Monica
I know that sounds strange because MKS makes more sense scientifically, so it must be pure sentimentality. At school I was forced to learn how many rods were in a chain and that there are 4 gills in a pint, so I can’t see why others should not learn these fascinating facts.
We took the obligatory tour to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Sunset Strip and Rodeo Drive. It is interesting how
Cheers!
powerful the Hollywood studios are in Los Angeles and how the stars are flaunt their opulance. Although strange how they can fall flat on their noses sometimes for example Hugh Grant and George Michael (both English ! ). The Beverly Hills houses are just plain ridiculous as there can be no real privacy in such places. Instead the houses in Malibu and up Mulholland drive are probably more private at least, if not also way too exaggerated. In the end any normal person might aspire to 4-5 bedrooms a couple of bathrooms a private garden and perhaps a pool. The rest is showing off.
The beaches are really beautiful with wide soft sand and clean pacific surf. Venice beach is just a 20 minute walk down from our motel. It seems stuck in a time warp of 60s hippy culture. There are aging 60+ year old hippies playing guitar. All the shops play 60s to 80s rock music and one can sign on to to buy hashish for medicinal purposes. It really is a very nice and pleasant place to walk through, get a tattoo or take a Chinese massage !
skateboarders @Venice
There is also one of the best scateboard parks I have seen where kids take huge risks with no protection. For sure the health and safety people would ban it in the UK, but this is what being young is about. In general they maybe get a few bruises. A risk assesment study would all have them wrapped up in padded rubber.
Further on past the airport is Manhatten Beach which we visited to check out a
Dolphins Manhatten Beach
a friend (Maury)’s wine shop. Manhatten Beach a very nice spot with its own pier, lovely beach and we saw about 10-20 large dolphins (bottlenose) swimming and playing just off the pier. The pier also provides a nice wave to break for surfers.
Surfing next to Pier
The danger however must be hitting one of the pylons because the right looks the cleanest wave.
Heading north from Santa Monica takes you to Malibu with some of the classiest beach side homes and massive villas overlooking the Ocean. There are a couple of famous surfing beaches including the place where the original Malibu borads were developed in the late 50’s. We had lunch at the Beachcomer reastaurant on the pier in brilliant sunshine. Driving further north from Malibu you pass some attractive empty cliff-fronted shoreline which is protected before arriving in Oxnard which is pretty nondescript but seems to be a centre for rice and fruit growing, and then Ventura. We got lost coming back along the Pacific Coast Highway. This road seems to have been subsumed in newer highways and there is the assumption that everyone driving along it was born in California. As a result you have no idea that you were supposed to have taken a left 3 blocks back as you enter an industrial area with no exit.
