Memorial Day in Malibu

We went against one of the pillars of our vacation philosophy this weekend: Stay home on holiday weekends, the crowds are maddening.

There was, however, a method to our madness.  Rick Bayless, our favorite celebrity chef (see my blog from Chicago in January 2009) opened a new restaurant in Los Angeles this weekend and I was fortunate enough to score reservations for Sunday night.  Our secret motel on the beach just north of Malibu happened to have a vacancy on Memorial Day weekend so we were in luck and headed to the coast.  We left early in the morning and 5 hours later were 10 miles from the Santa Monica Pier and the traffic on I-10 came to an abrupt halt.  What could it be? What was that pillar of philosophy again?  Exactly! Everyone was headed to the beach for the unofficial start of summer.  Slowly we rolled towards the ocean and when we arrived at the western terminus of Interstate 10 and made the right turn to head north up the Pacific Coast Highway the situation didn’t improve. But the beach was to our left and the breeze and distinct scent of the saltwater made it much more bearable.  Rolling through Santa Monica and Malibu throngs of beach goers jammed the parking lots and restaurants but when we finally made it to our motel just on the other side of Point Mugu State Park we had a quarter mile of beach nearly to ourselves.   

The slow going up the PCH didn’t leave much time for the beach though as we had to get changed for our dinner at Red O.  Leaving the motel we headed inland on the Ventura Freeway through Thousand Oaks and Agoura Hills then dropped down into West Hollywood via the beautiful Laurel Canyon and easily found the restaurant on Melrose Avenue.  The meal and service were both outstanding and well worth the traffic delay earlier that day.  After dinner we headed down Santa Monica Boulevard and drove through Beverly Hills on the way back to the coast.  The next morning we had our coffee on the beach and Christine found several sand dollars as she enjoyed getting her feet wet in the Pacific.  

 A couple seals bobbed up and down just yards from the shore in front of us then a few dolphins swam past and we reluctantly had to leave our secluded paradise and head back to Phoenix.  We’ll be back though; the salt air is a great tool for recharging the batteries. 

We'll probably stick to the pillars of vacation philosophy too.