San Diego and Orange County

April 20th, 2013        Mileage: 550

San Diego

Rob and I left Fallbrook in the middle of April to explore southern California. I went to college in Orange County and my parents moved to northern San Diego county a few years back, so I was eager to show Rob my favorite sights of Orange County and the desert. Rob had only been living in California for a year after moving from New Mexico, and hadn’t seen much outside of the bay area.

We spent some time in San Diego before our official departure from Fallbrook. Our sassy friend Laura showed us around a bit of Normal Heights and the bluffs of the shoreline. We ate and drank our way through town with fresh eyes and an excitement to see how hip and upcoming that city is. Already the world was becoming smaller for us. We met friends of friends who knew other friends and introduced both of our sides to one another. So far, traveling was a breeze in the park.

We met up with one of Rob’s besties, Matt, and his brother Mike to the local Stone brewery and indulged in a beer tasting and some shuffle board.

San Diego is such a young and dynamic beach city. We loved the young crowd, the restaurants and bars, the museums and art scene, and not to mention the unbeatable weather butt up against that big blue Pacific Ocean. The beer flows like waterfalls there and the sun just keeps on shining.

Orange County

After we left Fallbrook our first stop was San Clemente, one of the last little beach towns in Orange County. I lived in San Clemente for 4 years and was so excited to introduce this dear town to Rob. We met up with one of my closest girlfriends Emily, and went to the world famous longboarding beach, San Onofre. It was a gloriously sunny day with big, clean surf, and the best company.

We spent the sunset at the usual spot my friends would gather when we all lived in the same part of town, the vacant lot. We watched the trains roll by while penny manned the look-out over North Beach. The sun made a grand departure over the ocean’s horizon and we had our first delighting experience of free beach front parking.

Leaving San Clemente, we drove up the coast a bit through Laguna Beach then to Newport Beach. We came back to Laguna for the night and parked alongside the cliffs for another spectacular beach-front sleeping spot. I showed Rob the art college I went to, Laguna College of Art and Design, and the beautiful canyon it resides in. After a little exploring we headed inland for our next destination.