So Cal

Beachside breakfast in LA before hitting the road....

Southern California. Pausing only for a So Cal breakfast of yoghurt and organic fruit, and a manicure, I hit the road. The last leg of my road trip down Highway One took me from the delightful 'Shutters on the Beach' at Santa Monica down to Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego. To tell the truth, I did abandon dear old Highway One for an excellent freeway that sent me breezing cheerfully into my friends’ house to stay a few days, with no more driving on the wrong side of the road for a while. I managed the LA freeways, but was glad to leave them behind.

Cafe culture

The beach at Del Mar

These few days featured some very tough things: fish meals on the beach, long walks on the sand, strawberries picked fresh from the fields, relentless sunshine...old friends and new. So hard to take. Not.

Impromptu dinner parties, champagne at a La Jolla art gallery, visiting some fabulous houses...getting used to the lifestyle of gated communities, five acre blocks of land, horseback riding and automatically hopping in the car to buzz down to the wine shop or the cafe or the bakery or the beach. Yoga in the mornings. Dinner table discussions of where to get the best organic produce and the benefits of wheatgrass shots. Hey, dude. This is SoCal.

Galleries in the afternoon...

Rancho Santa Fe is part of several estates of five-acre lots in the area. It is known for its many eucalyptus trees, planted by the Santa Fe railroad to provide railways ties - except that it was discovered that the wood was unsuitable, so various ‘ranches’ were established instead. Hollywood stars liked the place as a getaway – Douglas Fairbanks had a big ranch here.

The area is only about half an hour from San Diego proper, where there is lots to see. But I preferred to spend a lazy few days beachside, in my new ‘California office’! (Thanks, Brigitta and Michael).

Torrey Pines