The Winter Wallop ~ Newport Beach, Dana Point & San Juan Capistrano

January 15 ~ 24

Trying as hard as we could, we simply could not find a car in Santa Barbara and found the dealers totally preposterous to work with.  We hope there will be more choices closer to L.A.  The search for a new car has been more complicated because there are very few that are towable behind Tor.  We would love another Jeep, but simply cannot find one that meets all our requirements.  We've now honed in on a Lincoln MKX and Rick has made contact with a dealer in Irvine that seems to have what we want on the lot. After a couple of days tooing and frooing, "Pearl" has now joined our Great Adventure.

We are staying at Newport Dunes RV Resort (newportdunes.com) which turns out to be a huge disappointment.  It's situated on a nice bay beach with great things for kids to do and a good full service restaurant, but they jam in the coaches so closely it's very uncomfortable even in January when it's not very full and it's very expensive for what you get.

Now that we've gotten the car problem solved, we're looking forward to enjoying Newport Beach, but we're thrown a couple of curves on that one!  First, I get bit, presumably by a spider, and my face looks like I've suffered through a very bad plastic surgery job.....bumps, black eye and swollen face....walk-in clinic doctor gives me peniccillin and I continue to wear my huge sunglasses everywhere at all times and there will be no pictures posted about this!

Then the "winter wallop" hits....we have four inches of rain in two days, tornadoes and flying/crashing palm trees, but are far luckier than those a bit further north that suffered dreadful mudslides and flooding. The next day looks even worse, so we pull up stakes quickly and move on to Dana Point where we are meeting our forever friends, Megan and Tod who are from Jackson Hole, but have rented a beach condo here for the month. We are forever grateful to them for giving us shelter through another four days of dreadful storms!

Mother Nature did, thankfully, give us windows of opportunity to get out for long walks and enjoy the stunning views of Dana Point....

and of Laguna Beach Park and finding all sorts of interesting foliage that we dubbed Dr. Seuss plants.

Stopped for a drink at a very lovely hotel called The Montage (montagelagunabeach.com)...gorgeous, but beware the prices are through the roof!

San Juan Capistrano

On another nice afternoon, we visited San Juan Capistrano.  The town itself is pretty touristy, but the mission is worth the visit....even without the swallows there!

The old mission had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1812 during Mass killing 40 people.  It took nine years to construct and only stood for six years.  In 1984 a new basilica was built around the corner to replicate the original mission.  It has the most gilded altar I've ever seen.

Rick  wanted to stop for a little "street eating"....found a great little hole in the wall call Pedro's Tacos....excellent fish tacos!

The remainder of our stay in Dana Point was spent catching up with our dear friends, teaching them to play the Wii and playing Gin.  Did get to dart out one night between the storms to a terrific restaurant called Thai This (thaithis.com) where we ordered a huge assortment of things to share....good find.

The storms have passed and we will leave in the morning for San Diego.  Kelly, Chip and Ian will join us and we can't wait!