Laguna Beach, California

Dana Point has free parking in the harbor area and on its streets. There is a pay machine at Salt Creek Beach where one inputs the space number and the time wanted and after paying receives a ticket receipt to display in the car. 

Many of the other coastal cities are not as generous. San Clemente has a similar machine near its pier parking, but also meters. Laguna Beach is especially unfriendly in providing free or low-cost parking. The street parking uses meters requiring quarters and near Heisler Park and downtown, the cost is $2.50 per hour. There is a 2 hour limit as well, though how they enforce that I don't know. 

After using up 10 quarters for Heisler, I didn't have enough for street parking in the retail district. Instead we parked in a lot at $10 per day, with no hourly option, just a flat $10 no matter how long you stayed in the lot. This is actually not too bad a deal if you are staying 4 hours or longer. Unfortunately for us, we only stayed about 2 hours: time to eat lunch at Slapfish, walk near the beach and along the retail streets, and then finish up with ice cream in a shop near to the parking lot. If we had discovered this lot before going to Heisler Park, we could have avoided the meter and would have done better cost-wise. One of the lots is on Ocean Street and the other is on the street directly east of the beach and near a bank. 

Heisler Park is not to be missed. Lovely views, lots of benches, and if you are adventuresome, tidal pools to explore.

To the south of the park is a swimming/sunbathing beach. No beachcombing allowed, however.

People were enjoying the warm sunny day.

Next to the public changing/restrooms and below stairs leading to a hotel, was this interesting mural and landscaping.

We ate at Slapfish which was part of a small eatery mall with a shared patio and up the block from the beach. Good fish tacos.

Some of the stores on the main north/south street surprised me. A nursery, especially. Given the difficulty of parking, a place where heavy items would need to be loaded into vehicles seemed impractical. 

A woodworker's shop was intriguing but it wasn't open. Pretty cutting boards in the windows though.

Another shop on the main highway going thru town:

Many of the professional offices had interesting planters. I really liked the lights at the one below.

We stopped in several art galleries, passed by more cafes and jewelry stores, and peeked in a hardware/housewares store. Lots of people eating on patios. This bird perched on a café sculpture, was on the lookout for food left or dropped by diners.

Now that I know what to expect, I would probably plan a visit to Laguna Beach differently than what we experienced. It is an expensive place to dine and shop and park.

This is the last of my California trip blogs. I will close with some photos of a walk I took thru a development across from our condos and on the trail west of our place. The Niguel Coast development was ungated and not too hilly so would be a good place to bike as well. We were blessed to have such nice weather for outdoors activities. Though most of the architecture had a California look, some seemed to be more like New England houses. At least there was pretty good variety.

 Houses viewed from the trail that edged the golf course and also went east facing the hills:

It was wonderful to bask in sunshine in my native state.

Dana Point, California

On Wednesday January 24th we flew from Indianapolis to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, picked up a car, and drove to our rental condo in Dana Point. Enroute, we stopped at In-N-Out Burger for our evening meal. It was about 8 o'clock stomach time, but we had a late lunch at the Dallas Fort Worth airport before changing planes. We were tired from not only the long day of travel but from the stress of a very icy dangerous drive on the east side of Indianapolis where we crawled along at 10 miles per hour afraid we would miss our flight. 

Our condo was off of Crown Valley Parkway, the entrance being on Camino Del Avion. The complex has about 35 buildings, quite large.

This neighborhood of Ritz Pointe has the high-density condos but also to the right of the entrance are large single homes bordered by a private golf course and a nice walking/biking path open to the public going west down a ravine or canyon about 2 miles? all the way to Salt Creek beach and  the ocean. My husband went the distance a few times, but I just strolled part way. The path also went east of Camino Del Avion looking towards the coastal foothills and the mountains.

Our unit was on the corner of building 4 on the ground floor. The condos are on hilly terrain so there were 3 levels: down a set of stairs, up a set of stairs, and "ground level" (no stairs). We didn't use the patio (behind the hedge) much; at the far end was a laundry room on the patio but next to the master bedroom's sliding glass door so handy enough for washing clothes. 

There was a pool with a spa pool and two other smaller spa pools throughout the complex.

Surprisingly enough we had some days in the high 70's and low 80's (one day 86) so using the pool or sitting by the pool was quite pleasant.

Thursday morning we headed toward Dana Point Harbor to find RJ's restaurant for breakfast. The rising sun had tinted the sky a beautiful coral/pink color over the Pacific Ocean and the cliffs. A grocery store was about a mile from our condo. We stocked up as we had a fully equipped kitchen. This shopping center bordered Street of the Golden Lantern which is the main drag down to the harbor. We found our condo well-situated to Dana Point but also to the freeway for day trips and to the Pacific Coast Highway for visits to other coastal towns.

On the 25th after shopping, getting settled in, and having lunch, we drove to the Ocean Institute on the northern edge of the harbor. We had some occasional light rain. The institute had a whale watching boat going out, but we decided we would wait for another opportunity when the day was nicer. Other companies offered these expeditions.

Besides static displays, the Ocean Institute has tanks of marine species, including a touching tank of sea stars.

My sister and brother-in-law in Whittier said they would visit  on my birthday (26th) and take us to lunch at Wind and Sea on the Dana Point Harbor. I decided to splurge on a fancy menu but casual atmosphere place, Two Left Forks, for dinner on the 25th. The steak was terrific. As it turned out, we stopped at my sister's house on Saturday after visiting Rancho Cucamonga and she fed us a light supper with a chocolate satin pie from Marie Callendar's. I had 3 birthday celebrations!

My relatives had visited Dana Point many times and drove us around pointing out certain features. They liked to cross the bridge  to a park near the channel and harbor master's office. We ended up doing that several times ourselves, taking a picnic lunch and the folding chairs from our condo, basking in the sun while reading books or for me knitting. I read somewhere there are about 1500 boats moored at Dana Point. 

 Wind and Sea restaurant where I had my seafood birthday lunch.

 Harbor Master's office. On this point is where we settled in on several afternoons.

Those furry little lumps are squirrels! They hid in the rocks when people walked by especially if they had dogs, but after reading awhile I would look up and they were advancing up the grass in a line almost surrounding our chairs; they were eating the grass!

One warm sunny afternoon we ate clam chowder at Jon's Fish shack sitting on the patio, then went whale watching. We saw 4 sightings of whales, but they are small gray ones and we never saw the flukes, just a bit of the back and the spouting water. More fun was the group of dolphins that decided to go along side our boat at one point. You could see them in the clear water angling up to break the surface.

We ended that special day by going to a park in Dana Point where people gathered to see the sun set next to Catalina Island.

If you visit Dana Point, you must seek out the Bluff Top Trail. The main viewing point is at the west end of the Street of the Amber Lantern. From there one can take a trail with many stairs across .2 of a mile overlooking the harbor. If stairs are a problem, then you should park at the end of the Street of the Violet Lantern. It is only a few steps down to the statue of the man throwing a cowhide over the cliff from that street, and you can look at the trail built into the cliff rather than traverse it. You can't park on either of these streets on Wednesday mornings because of street sweeper restrictions. Keep that in mind when planning.

We made many day trips from Dana Point. I will write about those in other posts. However, I will end with photos of Olamendi's. My backdoor neighbor in Winona Lake insisted we must eat at this Mexican restaurant in Dana Point. It was a favorite of Richard Nixon who lived south in San Clemente. Quite the colorful place. The outside is painted a bright orange as well, and we could easily pick it out from the whale watching boat.