SoCal, Day 6

Today we took a Tour of Unknown Beach Towns.  But only after the boys puttered around the kitchen – making breakfast hash and playing with choo-choos – while I enjoyed my coffee from the living room area.

But anyway!  So we had a few thoughts for how to spend our day, the one where we don’t have any obligations.  We thought about heading to Long Beach and checking out the Queen Mary, but decided to shelve that idea for a bit to think about it (paying $65 to basically spend our entire time focused on chasing after a toddler might be a bit much, honestly).  Then we thought about driving out to Palm Springs and hitting up Cabazon on the way, but then again: that’s quite the day trip.  And the desert will be interesting for all of 20 minutes.  Plus I’ve read those dinosaurs are overrated.  So what we decided to do instead was to stay close, and check out a few of the beach towns we don’t know especially well.

First up: Newport Beach.  Now: we’ve hit up Newport before.  Several times, in fact.  But every time we have headed there, it has been for specific purposes (hitting up TJs, visiting specific restaurants, attending my sister’s bridal shower, etc.).  This time we headed to spots we haven’t visited before, namely the main beach, pier area, and The Wedge.

Their main beach/pier area has really weird sand.  Like, really weird.  I don’t know if something weird is washing ashore or maybe Lady Gaga took a dip here after shooting Bad Romance and is to blame, but: there is black sand and all this glitter stuff, like, EVERYWHERE.  Our feet/legs/arms were covered in glitter stuff (and it wouldn’t wipe off) after playing in the surf.

Also there were a ton of birds (chickens), Pete was in heaven.

We stopped after a little bit to walk around the area.  Pete started asking for foooooooooood, so we stopped at Jane’s Corn Dogs and got him… wait for it… a corn dog.  Well, and a fresh lemonade (yum).  There corn dogs are seriously as fresh as it gets, they spear them and dip in batter right there in front of you, then fry them up.  YUM.

We wandered back to the car and then drove over to an area referred to as The Wedge – a length of beach formally named Jetty View Park, where the tide is just right for some killer waves.  Like literally, killer.  The surfers love it but sometimes it’s even too rough for the best of them – a couple we met on the beach told us how 2 surfers had died just a few weeks ago, when the waves got nice and high.  Today they were rather tame, so all we saw were boogie boarders.  C’est la vie.  The beach is nice, really soft perfect sand and aqua blue water.

We headed back to Seal Beach for a nap and some lunch, then headed out again.  This time: Huntington Beach, for some shopping, surf, and dinner.

We were doing good until Pete spied a gelato place.  Then we just HAD to stop for some banana chocolate-chip in a cup.

More shopping.  Pete was a good boy.

Until he was a bad boy, and then we had to make a stop for an impromptu Time Out.  Toddler dispair!  And yeah, I specifically chose this place after seeing that awesome anti-drugs sign on the dumpster.

After shopping we ran down to the pier, to check out the sunset and the (from what we can tell, pre-teen) surfing.

We were smart (finally) and started carrying a pair of swim trunks in the diaper bag.

It was a bummer that it was too dark for photos afterwards, as you don’t get to enjoy the awesome outfit we ended up with after leaving the beach – shirt and sweatshirt, swim trunks, striped socks pulled up to his knees, and closed-toe shoes.  YEAH.

We grabbed a bite at the local brewery, then headed home to tuck in for the night.  Tomorrow is our last full day here, I can’t believe it’s already that late in our trip.  Better make it count, I guess.

See you tomorrow all.