I never would have guessed that I'm a SoCal kind of girl

Despite living in California for three years, I've never really ventured outside of the Bay Area. When jparks and I plan vacations, we tend to want to travel to places that require passports and plane rides or we head back to NOLA to visit family. We've both been itching for a vacation and since I had to make the drive down to Los Angeles to pick up my limping husband, I figured we should make a short vacation out of it. After consulting with someone that actually knows about Southern Cal, I booked us three nights in the Laguna Beach/Dana Point area. Holy crap, that Whoorl will not steer you wrong on vacation advice because the whole area was gorgeous.

Jparks' knee was really swollen and walking on uneven ground was not really an option, so we never made it to the beach, but that didn't stop us from lounging about while doing nothing. Our hotel room had two patios and one was large enough for two lounge chairs and a table, so we spent one afternoon on it, soaking up the sun. Or in my case, soaking up the shade while wearing SPF 50 and still getting sunburned. The only thing missing was a bottle of champagne.



We also carved out time to see a movie (The Hangover, which was pretty funny although totally ridiculous) and jparks was treated to a pedicure. When I picked him up from the ride he leaned in and whispered to me "I'm really looking forward to the pedicure" so I knew that even though I hadn't made us pedicure appointments, I would have to find a place to fit us in. And what do you know, I found a place:



The woman giving jparks his pedicure offered to give him a clear coat of polish but he was not on board for that. I didn't understand why not, I mean if you're getting a pedicure you might as well go all out. And it's clear polish, not red like I got.

All in all the four days away was wonderful and I am now hopelessly in love with that area. I expected extremely hot weather but was treated to temps lower than here in the perpetually cool Bay Area. Also the whole area was green and lush and I kept telling jparks that I want to live in Southern Cal where they take water for granted and have plenty of plants and trees. Not that we don't have green around here, but it's not nearly as wide spread. Damn us and our water conserving ways.

I can't wait to go back and hopefully next time jparks won't be a gimp so we can visit the beach, although I was told the water is too cold to go into without a wetsuit. Also, I can't wait to go back so we can go to Harbor House Cafe and have another monster banana split.