Day One: Getting Started

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We cheated. On a day not overburdened with practical actions, we did do one small act of practicality. Our vacation plan is to follow Pacific Coast Highway from the Mexico border to the Oregon border. Calculating drive times, we realized that heading south before turning north could add quite a bit of drive time… too much to make our one week of vacation as restful as we might hope. The solution? Do a round trip to the border as a Sunday afternoon drive.

Like I said, low in practicality. But if we are going to spend too much time on the road, we should at least spend daylight hours on the route that inspired our trip. South on PCH, return via inland freeways.

So yes, we cheated in not traveling a very literal border to border along PCH, but we traveled every stop-and-go inch of PCH through LA County. We deserve the credit.

We begin on a still-raining Sunday afternoon. We grab some lunch, strap the kids in the car and wind our way through the mountain range to the sunshiny coast.

If we had a sunroof, we would put it down and blast Beach Boys or something similar. But we’re in our trusty commuter car, and we’re trying to get the kids to sleep, so it’s air conditioning and classical.

Like a long swallow of strawberry lemonade, we slide down the familiar Malibu coast and up to the Santa Monica Pier. There’s a circus in progress… or are they tenting for termites? We pass too quickly to discern which.

And then we’re inland. We’ve exchanged the rolling waves for something far less familiar and friendly. Don’t look to the right. Oh, and yeah. Don’t look left now. Did we make a wrong turn? Is this still PCH? Where’s a street sign?

Oh. Venice Beach.

It all makes sense now.

A little further and we’re in Marina del Rey. Enormous condominiums and posh street corners. And while we are still matching landmarks to stories we’ve heard, LAX.

Wait. LAX?

Since when did they put LAX here? I’m genuinely surprised. I’ve been to LAX dozens of times, yet it’s placement here, straddling PCH unnerves me. PCH isn’t for going to the airport. It’s for convertibles and Beach Boys.


And that’s when I begin to suspect that I’m in for many surprises following the Pacific Coast. And I’m only an hour into the journey.

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