Today we went watching whales. The plan was to drive to Oxnard (where the boat was, which we would take to the place the whales hang out). We were planning to leave at 10, drive in a leisurely fashion to the harbor, have lunch and hang out, meet up with R and his family, and then check in at 1.
They told us to ring at 11, and make sure that the sailing hadn't been cancelled. We were well on our way by then, just past the Malibu Feed Bin (I'd seen that from the road, and thought that it would have been a really good name for a restaurant, but I looked it up on the interweb, and it sells horse food, and similar stuff). We rang, but it was engaged. A whole lot of people would be trying to ring, so we kept going for a while - we weren't worried, 'cos we'd checked the weather forecast.
Then Robbie rang, and told us that the whales were cancelled. It was, apparently, too windy.
We'd got halfway there, and further in that direction than we'd been before, so we decided to keep going and find something interesting to do. I'd always wanted to go to Zuma Beach - mostly because there's a Neil Young album named after it. (The album is called Zuma, rather than Zuma Beach.)
So we went to Zuma Beach, and found that it was (as the boat people said) incredibly windy. In the photo below, you can see the haze that's the sand being blown just above the surface.
We went to the toilet, and there was a cafe further down the beach (we knew it was a cafe, because it said 'FOOD' in red letters, which were about 8 feet high, and were secured to its roof), so we walked there, to find it closed. We'd walked with the wind, and walking back against the wind was quite a strain - such a strain that the boys couldn't do it. I had to go back to the car, and drive down to the beach.
Then we drove further up the Pacific Coast Highway, and followed the first brown sign that looked like it was to somewhere interesting. It took us to a park area, which seemed bizarrely deserted. There was a Nature Centre (which was closed) lots of picnic tables, some benches arranged into a kind of theatre under the trees, some restrooms (as I have to say), and about 4 people. We walked in a big circle (it was a relief that it was a circle - we weren't sure) and arrived back at the car.
We drove back along the PCH (we call it that, 'cos we're cool) and stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and cakes. I said it was boring and samey to go to Starbucks, 'cos we always go there, and we should go somewhere interesting and different instead. (Bill Bryson wrote about that in one of his books "Let's go to Macdonalds/Burger King / Pizza Hut, because we know what we'll get." "Precisely", he replies. S pointed out that we haven't been to a Starbucks since we went shopping with her mother and she was breastfeeding. Which was a good point.
When we got home I looked to see if the Starbucks was on Wikimapia - it was (here) and S was very upset to find that a number of actors, including Pierce Brosnan, are regulars there (or so it says on WM). She wanted to go back and stalk them.
Finally, we saw another beach with a parking space that looked interesting - it was called the La Piedra Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach - you took quite a steep trail down from the car park, and the beach looked sort of interesting - there's an aerial photo here. I thought it was a much cooler beach than Zuma, but La Piedra Robert H. Meyer Memorial State would have been a crap name for a record. We were too weary by then to go down the hill and look, so we went home.
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