Photo and article by Maryann Hammers
Visiting Southern California doesn’t have to mean sitting in traffic jams and navigating freeways. Exit the freeway and head where the sky is blue, the landscape is lovely, and time stands still.
Stop and smell the sagebrush in the Santa Monica Mountains. A favorite stop is Malibu Creek State Park, where easy trails lead to the Rock Pool, tranquil Century Lake, or the “M.A.S.H.” television series site, complete with a rusted jeep (below) and other artifacts. Rangers at the visitor center at King Gillette Ranch offer maps and advice. The bohemian town of Topanga is also worth a visit for Topanga State Park; Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, featuring Shakespeare plays and folk music in nature; the New Age creek-side restaurant Inn of the Seventh Ray; and a popular country fair.
Pacific Coast Highway is the stuff of Beach Boys tunes and surfer’s dreams. Look one way, and you’ll see dolphins frolicking in the surf; turn the other for towering cliffs covered with blooming yucca, wild mustard, and golden wildflowers. It’s classic California, with surfers in wetsuits and Harleys roaring past. Start your tour at Will Rogers State Historic Park beach; stroll along the retro Malibu Pier; then line up for fish tacos at Neptune’s Net before reaching the Ventura County Line, memorialized in the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ U.S.A.”
Five of the eight Channel Islands make up coastal Southern California’s only national park. The largest, Santa Cruz, is famous for sea caves. Explore them on a guided kayaking excursion: You’ll see starfish clinging to rocks, crabs crawling along underwater kelp forests, sea lions bobbing nearby, and seabirds perched on outcrops. Wild, windy, and remote Santa Rosa Island boasts untouched beaches, smooth white sand, quiet coves, and clear water. A trail meanders to a Torrey Pine forest, with stunted trees that grow nowhere else in the world. On the catamaran ride to the islands, pods of dolphins ride in your wake. The real fun comes when you spot the flash of a whale’s tail, the arch of its back, or its impressive blows.