California Beaches

Saturday morning, Nic, Brady and I went on a run to start the day along this "gorgeous" river bed.  It reminded me that many parts of California are not lush and beautiful.  It also included my first 7 minute mile in probably 5 years.

Zachary has begged us to take him surfing in California since the moment we booked the tickets.  We knew the Clarks and Stebbins were not interested and we had no idea what trying to surf there actually looked like with traffic.  We did have a day open where everyone planned to shop (hard pass from us), and we decided to make our sonʻs wildest dreams come true.  We offered surf time to Kate as well, but she was desperate to stay with the group and shop (her biggest regret of the trip after she heard about our day).

We got insider information from Emily who surfs there regularly, deciding on T-street. We easily found board rentals and wetsuits, and Zac and I joined the crowd while Brady and Owen walked the pier and beach.  It was gusty but I stayed so warm in my wetsuit and enjoyed surfing on a shorter board.  Zachary, as predicted, was freezing and barely stayed in 20 minutes before defrosting on the beach.  He killed it for that 20 minutes, enjoying the new waves and break.  The waves were not as powerful as Kauai waves, which could obviously change based on the day but from what I learned, that is common (Hawaii v. California surfing in general).  It was nice to have a mostly sandy bottom and we did not notice any ruthless or rude surfers in the group at the break.  We also noticed the rules are not as hard and fast about dropping in--maybe bigger crowds there relaxed surf etiquette?  

Brady pushed Zac to get back out in the water and he surfed another 45 minutes.  We finally left after a couple hours, stopping at Trader Joes and the outlets for an hour.  

Brady captured Zac a couple times:

The group sent us photos from their day:

The next day, we shopped, swam, and ate:

PIC OF ZAC WITH BREAKFAST

That afternoon, we met at Huntington Beach to bike the boardwalk.  It was a little stressful for the first section (see photo), but then opened up and was a charming little outing.

Each kid took turns driving and we all pedaled.

Our small town kiddos could not believe the selection in these surf and skate shops.

The whole time we walked along the boardwalk and listened to the drums, I kept singing, "California, knows how to party...."  Huntington Beach was hosting a huge surf competition starting the next day so we watched pros do tricks up and down the wave face, the boys claiming we could hack the surf and me knowing it was too big.

I had my only migraine of the trip that evening but walked out to the water one more time and I was so happy I didnʻt miss these adorable moments of Kauai kids milking time at the beach.  It was so beautiful.

Kelp!  Something new.

Trust falls.

Are Kauai crabs and California crabs different?  Letʻs find out...

Caleb and Zachary instantly dared each other to jump in.  Boys are funny.  My same kid who could barely stand the water in a wetsuit was body surfing for 20 minutes with nothing--even no towel to use afterwards.

Kristen asked me what California beaches have that Kauai beaches do not and my answer is infrastructure--plenty of public bathrooms, fire pits, open sand, parking spaces, and picnic facilities.

California sunsets are pretty, too.