Room with a View

It was called Ocean View motel. This was the "view" from our room in Huntington Beach, we discovered this morning. Awww...c'mon. Surely you can see it. Look real hard. There is actually about an inch worth of water you can see between two buildings across the street.


We got the heck outta there ASAP this morning and got on the road to Laguna Beach. Peggy's friend had recommended that we visit "Fashion Island" and said that there were several good places where we could have brunch in the complex. Well, ya couldn't prove it by us. We walked miles around the "island" and the only restaurants we found were closed until 11 or so. The guy had recommended The Cheesecake Factory (which made our ears perk up), but it only opened at 11. We futzed around Circuit City for awhile and finally left at 11:10, but The Cheesecake Factory was still not open, so we called the whole thing a bust and just went looking for somewhere else.

We found Panini, where we had a lovely brunch sitting at an outside table where conversation was all but impossible for the traffic, especially the motorcycles, but it was a delicious meal and, feeling fortified, we got on the road again. Our directions for today were a little more clear: Get on the 405. Get off an San Diego. I figured we could do that. We could.

We stopped at one scenic overlook where there were tons of seagulls and people feeding them. We took lots of pictures, trying to get some good ones of the birds in flight.


Peggy also discovered a real squirrels' nest and got some great photos of some of the squirrels. The photo below of a seagull flying off with a piece of bread in its beak isn't the best, but I was tickled to get it.


And then we arrived here. We went to the tourist information booth to get some information on hotels. They found us a terrific place, The Vagabond, where we have adjoining rooms, with all the amenities and all for quite a bit under $100 a night. Peggy is thrilled. We shared a bed last night and she had to keep kicking me to tell me to roll over when my snoring kept her awake.

We had most of the afternoon ahead of us, but we just settled in here for our 3-night stay. We went to a supermarket and loaded up on food, then went to Mervyn's, where Peggy gave me a course in power shopping (that girl does know how to spot a bargain!), and then to Target to get a real coffee cup, and an electric kettle so we can have both instant coffee (her) and brewed coffee (me) in the morning.

We came home with our treasures and loaded up the fridge. Then we cooked up some chicken, fixed a salad, and set a table for ourselves here in the room while we watched the Olympics. All very civilized and much cheaper than going out to a restaurant. We have enough leftovers that we will do that tomorrow as well.

Peggy wrote some e-mail while I napped and she's now gone to bed, with closed door so she will sleep soundly for a change, and I'm about to do the same thing. Tomorrow we will be spending at the Wild Animal park, which was the real reason for this trip.