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| Up at The Strands |
I had 5 wonderful days in California at the end of June/ beginning of July - and after the miserable spring and start of summer, wow, was the sunshine welcomed!! It wasn't overly hot, about 23 degrees most day, but ooooh the sun!
It was lovely to see Kate and her family; I last saw them 4 years ago and so much has happened in all our lives since then. We had quite a bit of catching up to do!!
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| Crystal Cove State Park |
The first three days were spent in Dana Point (and surrounding area) - we spent some time on a 'nostalgia tour', visiting, or trying to find, spots we remember fondly from our past 20 years of visits. We also added some new fun things - went antiquing and found Kate some lovely furniture! Did some lovely beach/ cliff walks, and also explored a 'canyon' - Crystal Cove State Park had the best of both sea/cliffs & canyons for us! So lovely!
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| Ocean at Dana Point |
On the fourth day we drove 3 hours north to Santa Barbara, which seemed like a 'get away' town for LA. It has a nice, patriotic, main street full of interesting shops and restaurants, a super beach area with a nice boardwalk for bikes and walkers, lots of beach volleyball nets and boats and everything you can imagine that floats, and as well a lovely pier. An art festival was on at the time, so we had great fun poking our noses into a variety of different interests...
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| Out for dinner in Santa Barbara |
The last day was spent packing up and driving down to LA. There we put on our proper tourist hats and hoped on one of those city tours. Saw Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, La Brea Tar-pits, The Grove, Hollywood Sign etc... and of course we wandered along the Walk of Fame to the Chinese Theatre to check out the hand & foot prints of celebrities... proper tourist stuff!!
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| Chinese Theatre, Hollywood |
It was a lovely trip that went too fast!! Photos are up on my Flickr site, but here are a couple!
