California Trip - Day 6 - LA Beaches

If we were going to see some of the L.A. beaches, on a weekend no less, we'd have to pick a choose carefully and get a somewhat early start. We were starting to get a little tired of the slim pickings for breakfast at the hotel and started eating our breakfast groceries instead. Pop-tarts, muffins and cereal bars filled the whole until lunchtime.

First, we took a route most would overlook, hugging the coast through Palos Verdes instead of cutting across it. I'm glad we did because it was a beautiful section.

From there is was on to Venice Beach. Knowing it was going to be swamped, I grabbed parking at the first lot I could find close to the boardwalk. It cost $17 but was much better than walking a mile to and from the car.



A quick look at the canals left Crimson unimpressed and we made our way to the boardwalk. We watched several street performers (both good and bad), looked at peoples arts & crafts, gazed into many shops, people watched and had a nice lunch at a street cafe. We stayed longer than I originally expected and Crimson didn't want to leave. In fact, she kept mentioning that she wanted to return at various points during our trip. This worried me a bit. It was the festival atmosphere that seemed to draw her to it.

From there it was on to Santa Monica. Fortunately, there were parking garages around this area because the placed was jammed packed. Tons of people in and around the water. I found the place a bit underwhelming and would have spent the time at Venice Beach had I known it. With the next day set for Six Flags Magic Mountain, the tiny coaster wasn't much of a thought.



Next up was the journey to Malibu. We stopped along PCH when we spotted a parking spot to take a quick look at a public beach access and then went to Malibu Bluffs Park for some nice views. Crimson was exhausted and asleep from this point on as I drove through to Oxnard and back inland towards our hotel in Valencia next to Six Flags. I actually found the trip from Malibu to Oxnard to Valencia more scenic than the one from Santa Monica to Malibu although some of the houses around Malibu were incredible.

Upon reaching the hotel, I had work to do as we'd reached the midway point of our trip and we were running out of clean clothes. We ordered some pretty good, albeit expensive, room service, watched some Sunday night TV and did laundry.