Posts

Pacific Beach

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For my last blog post I decided to pick a beach that I’ve been to dozens of time, Pacific Beach . Pacific Beach is located in San Diego, which is about a two hour drive from Orange County. I’ve spent every year, for as long as I can remember going to Pacific Beach and staying at the Pacific Terrace Hote l for Thanksgiving as well as other holidays. So I am very familiar with this area and it has a special place in my heart. The beach itself is pretty mediocre. Its nothing picturesque like Laguna surrounded by vegetation and crystal clear water, but it does have its perks. It has tons of shops and restaurants around. Heres a list of the best 10 restaurants . Its also really great beach to watch surfers. Every time I go I find tons of sand dollars and a few times I’ve seen starfish.   Once you leave the beach and go up on the board walk theres great restaurants. One of my favorites is Taco Surf . Every time I go I get multiple bean and cheese burritos and save them for later, th
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Woods Cove

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Woods Cove beach is one of my fairly new finds in Laguna. During fall break my friend and I were just beaching hopping and happened to stumble across this very intimate beach. The beach itself is small and the people who go their are mostly locals. Its not very fair from the main beach. So if you want a more real experience of Laguna and to avoid the tourists I would highly suggest walking a bit further to Woods Cove. This beach doest not disappoint in tide pools. None of the other beaches I go to in Laguna are particularly known for the tide pools but this one provides. The water is crystal clear and you’re able to see all the little creatures hiding in the nooks and crannies of the rocks. Just like any other beach in Laguna the parking is a nightmare. There is no parking lot but it has quit a lot of neighborhood parking. So during off hours it would not be a pain to find parking. This is also an ideal place to watch the sunset. Before you get to the beach you h
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Location: Woods Cove, California 92651, USA
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Catalina Island

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Todays beach is actually going to be an island! Its not located in Orange County but the closest port to get there is located in Long Beach. You may have heard of Catalina Island from the famous movie Step Brothers . Otherwise Catalina island is famous for its casino (with no gambling), the mysterious buffalo, garibaldi fish, the abundant amount of golf carts, and its amazing snorkeling. I often forget about Catalina because its a hour long boat ride away . The boat tickets are not cheap but I have frequently found them on Groupon for half the price. The couple times I’ve gone (of course with Groupon Tickets) its been completely worth the trip.   I’ve been to Catalina Island a total of three times. First trip was with my seven grade class and it was a part of our outdoor education program. The two other times were during my senior year of high school for leisure. During these trips I went snorkeling at Lover’s Cove, ate at the Catalina Cantina, and laid out at the beach. If yo
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Balboa Peninsula

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This week I will be talking about Balboa Peninsula . You might recall earlier in the blog I talked about Balboa Island, which might be a little confusing so I will explain. Balboa Peninsula is attached to the main land while the island is attached with a bridge. The part that confuses me though is every time I go to Balboa Peninsula I take a ferry. So I mix up the names of Balboa Peninsula and Island. The reason I always take a ferry is because it takes a long time to drive through the peninsula to get to the main part of Balboa Peninsula. I’ve attached a picture below to help understand. I always have a great time at   Balboa Peninsula because it has everything. Theres restaurants, shops, carnival rides, ice cream shops, and of course the beach. Theres places you can rent bikes and stand up paddle boards. Theres a section called ‘The Fun Zone’ and it has a waterfront Ferris Wheel, an arcade, and a nautical museum. Everything’s walking distance from each other. Its like
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Reef Point

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Going off of last weeks blog I’m going to talk about another beach that is located in Crystal Cove , called Reef Point . I’ve been to Reef Point a few times, never really knowing the name of it until this last time when I visited. This is the perfect beach to go hiking at then go and cool off at in the ocean and explore the tide pools. Reef Point, just like any other Crystal Cove beach requires you to pay $15 to enter the beach. One of the major cons. On the good side though, just like I said in the last blog, you can go into any of the three other beaches. So if you do go into one of the Crystal Cove beaches it would be a really smart idea to spend the day beach hopping and experiencing them all. One other con of Reef Point is the amount of stairs leading down to it. The stairs are all different types of sizes and materials making it extremely hard to walk down. Once your down onto the beach your good to go though.   A major pro for Reef Point is that its the perfec
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Location: Reef Point Dr, Newport Beach, CA, USA
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Historic District

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This last week during spring break I visited the Historic District. A beach I’ve been to many times and I’ve forget the true charm of it. The Historic District is in Crystal Cove which is the first state park I’ve talked about on this blog. Crystal Cove is located in Newport and has four beaches within it: Moro beach, Reef Point, Historic District, and Pelican Point. During this blog post I will mainly focus on the Historic District.   To enter any of these four beaches you have to pay $15 to parking. Which is the one and only con I have. It’s a lot of money to pay to just be able to park but it does mean it guarantees you parking which is sometimes worth the cost. Once you’ve paid you are then able to visit any of the 4 beaches within Crystal Cove. This is really nice because if your sick of one beach you can beach hop to another without paying again or struggling to find parking.   Now going on to the Historic District. This is a little village filled with restaurants,
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Super Bloom

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This week I’m going to take a break from beaches and focus on the real star of the show in Southern California, the Super Bloom. The technical definition of the super bloom according to National geographic is, "is a colloquial term used to define an explosion of wildflowers that exceeds typical spring blooms.” After talking to some people and hearing what the news has to say I would define the super bloom to be a large amount of wildflowers that appear after weeks of rain.   During my spring break I have seen the super bloom twice now. There are no words to really describe how magical it is. The mountains are just filled with orange poppies that go on for miles and miles. The first time I visited was on a Sunday and it was filled with tourists. They actually closed down the exit to Lake Elisnore, which is the exit were suppose to get off at. They closed down the exit because of the amount of people comparing the gathering to “ Disneyland sized crowds .” It took a good thirty
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