South Bay Tour Day
March 19, 2025
Part of the reason for this trip is to go to Disneyland, and part of it is to show Janet some of my old haunts. Today was a chill day in the South Bay.
We met in the alley behind both of our places at 10:00 and hiked down the Esplanade to the Riviera Village for coffee at Offset.
I’d planned a walking adventure from Torrance beach to RAT to Malaga Cove to the Plaza to our old house and back… but that was not to be, as Janet’s back was acting up, so: shopping instead, then lunch at Turquoise (had a great Kaboudeh wrap).
We each chilled for a bit in our respective cottages then took a driving tour that included my old house, Via Campesina, the Plaza, Malaga Cove, the gazebo, the Neighborhood Church, Bluff Cove, PVHS, the E-ticket portion of PV Dr. West, and then a nice walk at Pt. Vicente
From the Pt. Vicente trail:
A nice view of Catalina.
We then headed to Chris’s. Betsy showed up and then Chris took us all on a great cliff-side walk. Definitely doing that walk again. He got to show me the trail to Indicator (a surf spot) that includes a gnarly hands & knees section that he named Kari’s Corner because it’s the most “alpine” part of the trail.. which he said reminds him of me. Flattered! He’s been wanting to show me that spot for years, so I was glad to see it (though the trail was steep and slippy and I didn’t want to go all the way down to the famous corner, LOL).
My finger’s not exactly pointing to the correct spot. Continue along the trail from where Chris is, then just beyond the spot where the trail seems to vanish is a ledge.. that ledge Kari’s Corner and you have to scooch down — probably on your butt — to rejoin the trail (not visible here). It’s quite a ways yet to the beach.
Here are some shots from the walk along the cliff adjacent to Paseo Del Mar.
Look at these old geezers….
A nice view of downtown LA…
The turnaround spot.. up at the junction of PV Dr. N and Paseo Del Mar. The viewpoint for the submarine races.
We left the Paseo Del Mar trail and headed quickly to Lunada Bay to catch the sunset. And made it!
A beeeeautiful day.
Janet and Kari Hit the Road
March 18, 2025
Here we go! A short little turnaround between trips (which made packing easy!), and by 10:00am, I was honking the horn at 305 Norte Ave, summoning Janet so we could begin our six-day trip to SoCal! (Not really: I walked up to the door because I’m polite that way.)
We stopped at the South Davis Starbs for road coffee, then hit the road. We hit the usual traffic in LA and had a couple stops along the way, arriving to our Redondo beach cottages by 5:30. Seven-plus hours, not horrible.
I was able to book one of my standby cottages on Avenue A (Tiana’s place) and, super-fortunate, Tiana made me aware that the family next door has now added an airbnb to their property and we were able to book that one for the same days. So… we had adjacent cottages, giving us space and alone time as needed, which turned out to be quite brilliant. Both cute, clean, tidy, adequately appointed. And a block from the beach!
We dropped our stuff and headed right to the Esplanade!
We took a good long walk, called Chris, made a quick reservation for dinner, and then caught a beautiful sunset:
No pics, but our dinner at Bettolini’s with Chris was fabulous.
Off to Dillon
January 23, 2025
Off to an extended birthday weekend in Dillon… first stop Petaluma, and lunch at the Wild Goat Bistro. We mighta chosen Pearl, but they were on a Winter break. Hadn’t been to the WG Bistro before and we were both pleasantly surprised. Jim had tacos and a cute serving of black beans in a mini frying pan. I had tomato and goat cheese bisque and a smoked salmon, bacon and avocado sandwich.
We settled into Camp David…
It is no Full Circle, but our beloved cottage down on Summer St. has been priced well out of our range. (Before taxes and fees, Full Circle now goes for $805/night.. which probably means it’s well over $1000 for a night, with a maximum of two guests.. that’s just nuts. It was a fabulous run… but we have to find new places to stay in Dillon.) Camp David is a wee funky from the outside and has no ocean view, but the inside’s lovely, and certainly met our needs.
We took a walk before dinner and caught a stunning sunset… headed down to the beach via the pirate…
A couple more…
Life of Wry 