California – Huntington Beach, LA (11-12 June 2007)

After a day of scenic driving along windy cliff facing roads, we arrived at Hungtington beach in LA just in time for me to have a late rendezvous with two friends from my Texan days, J & T. We managed to catch up on three years of our lives in just two hours in ‘downtown Huntington’ which, as they said, is not as tacky as most US beach towns seem to be. Huntington beach was nice and stretched for miles, although I can’t say I can comment from personal experience. We could see it from our room, and from the hotel pool, and so J and I felt this was good enough and decided the convenience of drinks on hand, warm water and comfy loungers were good enough reasons to spend the two days at the hotel.


The second night and it was time for me to meet friend D. Feeling the need to visit a place named after him, we set off to Dana Point and then checked out 1,000 Steps Beach which is a secret place known by just a few locals. And once I’d climbed up the 1,000 steps, I understood why it's a secret. Of course, some of the million dollar houses which overlook the beach have their own elevators or trams so that the 1,000 steps can be avoided. We felt like we deserved some Thai food after all that.



It was our last evening in Huntington beach so J and I had planned to meet my British friend F and visit Beverly Hills and Hollywood Blvd and do general touristy things. But a combination of J getting sunstroke and F falling off her bike meant that our last night in LA was spent in our hotel room, ordering room service. My friends are so inconsiderate sometimes.