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Springtime on the Pacific Coast Highway

April 14, 2004 - Santa Barbara to Laguna Beach, California
6 hours, 45 minutes - 157 miles

TODAY'S MAP: (from the H.O.G. members trip planner & MapQuest)
april 14 map

A late, lazy start today from Santa Barbara. Breakfast in Ventura, and a stop to watch the water in Malibu - where I made my fidgety camera work one more time.
malibui

Then it was on through Santa Monica, Marina del Rey, Palos Verdes and San Pedro right smack in to the middle of the busiest container port on the west coast - the Port of Los Angeles / Long Beach. I found myself suddnely among hundreds of container trucks hauling all manner of boxes from one yard to another. I felt decidely out of place and spent about half an hour somewhat feverishly looking for signs to Highway 1 again.

I'll grant you that I never went anywhere near the heart of Los Angeles, Westwood, Burbank, and so forth and I never spent more than five minutes on an LA area freeway, so my view of the area is extremely maladjusted, I realize. The only other times I've been in this area have been in rental cars in Orange County - down in Irvine, Santa Ana, Costa Mesa and so on. What amazes me about the whole area though is just how much sparse-ness there still is when you get just out of the main traffic and congestion. It's funny, although I don't think I could ever live around here, I can see why a lot of people like it. How can you beat these beaches?

I pulled in to Laguna Beach at about 3:00 in the afternoon and got a hotel for the night. I'm meeting a friend for dinner nearby later and there's no point in continuing along this afternoon. The best part? They were jackhammering the tiles off all the outdoor floors of the hotel - the racket was deafening. Why was this the good part? Because right across the street from a beutiful white sand beach covered with beautiful people, I got a discounted hotel room because of the "inconvenience" of the noise, dust and commotion. What would have been a $200 room was only $79 that night - SCORE!! The jackhammering quit at about 5:30 and the place was wonderfully quiet and comfy all night long.

DInner was just down the road in Dana Point with a friend I haven't seen in a couple of years. It was a nice end to a nice, lazy day.

GO to the next day of the trip

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