Aaah! Laguna Beach. We have been here now for a day and a half. My husband arranged for us to stay at the Inn at Laguna Beach. It’s expensive, this one, and certainly beats the Motel 6’s I stayed in during my last trip down the California coast. But oh, it is so worth it! Our room has a balcony looking right out into the ocean. The sound of the waves crashing onto the shore fills every corner of our room making everything right with the world, at least for today.
I don’t know what it is about the ocean. I’ve never been able to swim very well. I get seasick if I go out in a boat. But I love the sound of it and I love watching people walking up and down the beach with shoes in hand soaking up the warm rays of the sun and probably forgetting, like me, that it is still February.
We did little else today but walk along the shore appreciating our surroundings and sitting on
the balcony reading and watching the world go by. This afternoon, I took off my own shoes and walked along the beach dipping my feet in the ocean as I went. The water was cold. Another reminder that it is, after all, still winter. The water that covered my feet made my legs ache but still I could see many people, mostly young, out in the surf playing among the waves in spite of the cold, hoping to get a good ride and mostly wiping out.
Last night, we went to the Cottage Restaurant across the street from our hotel. It boasts home cooking and was very good but the portion sizes were fit for more people than the number sitting at our table. Much of the food went to waste I fear. Shame.
Today for lunch, we picked up some sandwiches and tea from the Starbucks across the street from our hotel. We ate happily on our balcony and continued to drink in the view that will soon be only a memory, but a good one. Tonight, we are doing the same. Our dinner is being delivered to our room so that we can wring the last drop of pleasure from the ocean vista now available to us.
My husband hopes that we can eat out on the balcony but the temperature is dropping rapidly with the sun and I suspect our attempts to preserve the mood of this afternoon will diminish by each degree Fahrenheit. Nonetheless it is a valiant try. My husband even went to buy candles for our balcony table and of course we have a bottle of Robert Mondavi Chardonnay to help ward off the chills. We’ll see.
Tomorrow, we are off to Palm Desert, stopping off at Riverside to have lunch with friends who spend the winter there. In Palm Desert there will be golf and shopping and socializing with friends who also travel from Vancouver to avoid the dreariness of the winter there. I know I will enjoy it, but I expect my mind will often drift to today, a perfect day spent simply appreciating my life and surroundings without thought of anything but the wonder of being alive.
So here are the Beach Boys , just for fun. Enjoy
