Our direct flight to California took off on Saturday, May 24 at 7:30am EST from Raleigh and landed about five hours later at 9:30am Pacific Time in Los Angeles. Yes, I wore my socks :) We picked up our checked bag and rental car without incident, and headed to lunch! We were planning to grab something simple at John’s Garden in Malibu, but John (my John) really wanted to have tacos in Southern California, so when we spotted a taco place nearby, we jumped. They were good! Our initial observations about Malibu: we could not believe the number of Ferraris, Maseratis, and Lambourghinis on the road. Also tons of Teslas. We looked, but didn’t spot any celebrities :) Also, the ladies looked a bit… disheveled, but expensively so. I’m not sure I could master that look. After lunch we drove a few miles up the coast to our first site to see: Point Dume State Beach! Parking was limited, but we eventually found a spot a ways up the road and walked back through an extravagant neighborhood to get to the beach. There were piles and piles of bourganvillea everywhere! Once in the park, our short hike up to the top of the bluff yielded impressive views, despite the marine layer that had settled in. We then climbed down many, many stairs to get to Pirate’s Cove. The surfers made it feel very California. We were particularly intrigued by the passageways, stairs, elevators, and funicular (!) that lead from the estates up top to the beach below. See it there in the middle? Alas, with no funicular at our disposal, we hoofed it back up to the top. It really was great to stretch our legs after the flight, but we had plans to visit Ojai before checking into our