"Los Angeles is great because it's a big city, but you drive a few hours out of the city and you hit beaches, deserts, mountains...it's great!"
...is what I said a lot when people asked "Why LA?"
It's not that I didn't mean it; I do love all of those environments. But that reason was, for a while, a cover for a reason I didn't think people would understand. I moved to LA because if I moved anywhere else, I'd be thinking about LA.
When Labor Day leapt out from behind the annual family lake trip this year, I realized I didn't have anything to do with myself. I had already worked a few weekends in August and the workload hadn't died down, so I knew sitting around the apartment would devolve into calculating pension benefits or coding our software. I couldn't go to Tahoe because my roommate was out of town and I had to watch our cat, who is even now splayed out belly-up next to my laptop as though I were taking dictation for his memoirs.
At last, someone suggested I take some day trips. Ojai, San Juan Capistrano, Temecula. I loved the idea immediately. Hop in the car in the mornings, spend a day driving to a new place and exploring, then come back home. No hotels, which meant money saved, but a day long enough to soak a place in.
Of the suggested options, I picked San Juan Capistrano and landed on Big Bear Lake for a second outing. I had friends who raved about escaping to Big Bear and it made more sense to fill in that gap in the map than to entrust one of my precious days to a Best Of listicle. As of Saturday morning of Labor Day Weekend, that was my plan. San Juan Capistrano on Saturday, Big Bear on Sunday, Monday at home...potentially working. Beaches, Mountains, home.
Man plans, God laughs.
I set out Saturday morning with a day bag filled with swim trunks, sunscreen, clothes for a hike, and various other "what if" elements. As I fired up Google Maps, however, I discovered something I probably should have looked into before...San Juan Capistrano isn't actually on the water. It's close-ish and Capistrano Beach is, as is sounds, a shore town, but if I was going for a beach-centric day, perhaps I would need to do more than drive straight to SJC. I decided the PCH would be a good route to take: pick it up as early as I could and make the slower, lazier way down with the Pacific beside me.
"But what about other stops?" I wondered. Inspired by my random detour to Crystal Bridges on my drive west, I googled museums along the coast. One of the first hits caught my eye immediately; at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, they had a replica of the Pilgrim, the brig Richard Henry Dana sailed with, inspiring his book "Two Years Before the Mast." I had read "Two Years..." during the winter and found myself amazed at its depiction of a remote, sparsely populated Southern California. For instance, Dana mentioned how the small port town of San Pedro ran wagons back and forth to the far-off, inland Ciudad de Los Angeles. The idea of being in San Pedro and thinking "eh, Los Angeles is a ways off" is unimaginable now.
As I remembered this and other passages, I suddenly started, thinking, "Richard Henry Dana. Dana Point. Oh..." I don't know why the penny didn't drop until that moment...probably because I didn't really remember the author's name that well...but if there's one thing I love, it's a tall ship. I put the car into drive and cruised off to pick up the PCH.
Though naturally slow on the PCH, the traffic was surprisingly light for beach towns on Labor Day Weekend. Making good time, I pulled off north of Huntington Beach, park the car, and put a towel out to take a break. As I sat, reading Algorithms to Live By (highly recommended), the waves overwhelmed my busy August, rounding the harsher edges down. I became immediately thankful I took the advice to get away and additionally grateful that I was doing it on my own. Early departures, random stops, complete audibles on a day's plan: these would be the hallmarks of the weekend and they are hard to get away with when traveling as a group.
After my wee sunny sit, I got a cold brew and a chocolate croissant at the Newport Beach Corner Cafe. I sat on their patio, now hiding from the sun, and watched as folks biked up in swimsuits for coffee or crossed the busy street with their beach bags and sand buckets. The northern edge of town reminded me of Stone Harbor back east. Low buildings, small businesses, houses once bought for a song that would sell for a symphony. It was pleasantly familiar and that feeling survived even my brief foray into the choked streets of the Balboa Peninsula.
Once I got back on the PCH, I stayed on until Dana Point, turning off onto the Street of the Green Lantern. Despite my hopes for Batman Avenue or the Kal-El Camino Real, it seems that Dana Point has many Lantern roads (Blue, Amber, Ruby, Violet, Crystal, etc). Though each a mouthful, the street names evoked bright flame behind colored glass swinging in a night breeze at the head of each street.
Hal Jordan Street led to Cove Road, which twisted and turned down the tall cliffs of Dana Point, sufficiently set back from the rocky ridge so that I could not see the water until the last turn, where the road leveled out and the Dana Point Harbor spread out before me. Beneath the towering cliffs, boats bobbed in their slips or struck out along the long breakwater to get to sea. Paddle boards dotted the harbor, deftly navigating around the piers and, in some intrepid cases, venturing across the water to the Ocean Institute, where the Pilgrim sat gleaming in the sun.
Her rigging soared and criss-crossed itself. Her ropes and beams creaked as she rocked slightly against her mooring. A few volunteers scrambled around the deck, but I could not keep my eyes off the ship herself long enough to see what they were busy at. I walked along the railing to where a gate barred entry to her dock; tours were only held on Sundays. I took a seat on a bench beside the Ocean Institute and meditated on the ship, tracing the lines from beam to block, from block down to the pins.
Once I began walking again, I passed a plaque devoted to Dana himself, recalling how he and the crew of the Pilgrim collected dried cattle hides tossed out over the very cliffs that still towered over the harbor today. Across the sidewalk, a bronze statue depicted two sailors bringing in a sail, their legs firm against the footrope and their arms heavy with canvas. A little farther off, in another gated-off area, stood a small mast and a series of pulley stations, apparently an outdoor classroom to teach children about tall ships.
From there, I decided to investigate the long, rocky breakwater that stretched south from the cliffside, creating the long, thin Dana Point Harbor. There was a pathway along the breakwater, beginning on the far western end of the Ocean Institute, where several families and couples had scattered around the rocks. Once up on the breakwater itself, I saw a staircase on my right leading down to a small, boulder-ridden beach below the cliffs. With the breakwater several yards up off the water, I decided the beach would be a better spot.
I stayed on that beach for the better part of an hour, sitting atop a boulder half again as tall as me and watching as the water maneuvered through the rock piles below. The cliffs behind me leapt from the beach in a great wall, isolating me on this one little spot of land. Families walked past, the children looking in the tidal pools for signs of life, the parents throwing their hands out whenever the kids seemed about to lose their footing.
When I finally came down from my perch, I felt light. I kicked off my sandals and walked back to the staircase with my feet in the water, dodging whenever the waves splashed off the rocks in my direction.
As I returned to the car, a sandwich-board sign caught my eye. The next weekend, the 9th through the 11th, there would be a tall ships festival in Dana Point. Given how thrilling the Pilgrim was, it was a no-brainer, but I nonetheless stood staring at the sign in amazement. How had I happened upon this? I made a note in my phone to look up the details, then put it from my mind.
I felt I no longer had to go to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, so I did a drive-by on it and kept moving, continuing all the way up to Seal Beach. There, I parked the car off one of the main shopping drags before plopping down in Bogart's Coffee House. I flipped back and forth between Algorithms and the internet, while eavesdropping as a local retiree held court with his buddies around a nearby table.
As dinnertime came around, I ate at The Hangout on the same block, then walked out across the Seal Beach pier as the sun set. Swimmers, runners, people playing with their dogs in the surf: all turned gold while the families along the pier pulled on sweatshirts and huddled close. In the distance, the sun dipped over San Pedro, the harbor's towering cranes striking severe silhouettes. With the light went the heat of the day, so I stepped up my pace back down the pier and past the shop windows on the way to my car.
One day down. The next day would be Big Bear and I had decided on the drive up to Seal Beach that I would make a real challenge out of it and add Joshua Tree on Monday.
Beaches, Mountains, Desert, in three days. Seemed like a good spin on a staycation.
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