A week in California

We flew out to California a week ago Sunday. It sure was good to get away from the snow and cold for a while. It was raining when we arrived not very hard.  We went over to Seaport Village to get something to eat. We ate outside! That is the ultimate luxury for those of us escaping winter.  We walked around Seaport village for a while and the sun came out. Had a cup of coffee at the Upstart Crow Coffee House and then, after a while, headed on up to Dana Point to check in to the Laguna Cliffs Marriott. As many times as we had been to Dana Point we never saw the Marriott - it overlooks Dana Point Harbor but it's high up on it's own cliff and tucked back so it's not that noticeable. We grabbed a pizza in the hotel lounge and watched the Oscars on a big screen TV.

Monday was our free day before my conference started so we were up and ready to head out pretty early. Just before we headed down to the car it started raining pretty hard so we grabbed some umbrellas and shrugged our shoulders. By the time we had gone a couple of miles up the coast the rain and stopped and the sun had come out.  We had breakfast at the Ruby's Diner in Laguna Beach - it had some cool old cars parked out front.

After breakfast we walked around Laguna Beach for a while and then headed North.  We drove right through Balboa Island to the ferry and took that across. Our next stop was Huntington Beach. They had a long pier that we walked out on and we watched some synchronized kite flyers.

Our next stop was Seal Beach. We had a great lunch at Walt's Wharf. Jill had salmon tacos and I had a calamari steak sandwich. We walked around the town a bit, went out on the pier and watched some surfers.

Next stop was the Queen Mary in Long Beach. We hadn't been for a very very long time.  The ship has been moored there for 40 years! We took the self-guided tour and really enjoyed it.

 

We didn't get back to Dana Point until after 6. Went to dinner at the Beach House right out on the harbor.

The next two days I had to go to meetings all day.  Tuesday we worked through dinner but Wednesday night Jill and I went back up to Laguna Beach for dinner. We stopped for a drink in an old hotel right there in downtown Laguna Beach. It's been there forever but we had never gone in. Saw a sign on the wall advertising room rates in 1950 - $10 per night for an ocean view.