Tooling Down the PCH, Part 2

So after yesterday’s post, we continued on to the beach communities in Orange County.  I have to admit that I’m a lot less knowledgeable about Orange County as , frankly, there was never much of a reason to venture down that far when  I lived in L.A.  I was really surprised at what we ran into.  The stretch of PCH between Long Beach and Huntington Beach was pretty industrial, mainly consisting of oil wells both on land and in the water.  The oil wells are still there, but property values have risen to the point that every other piece of land has high-priced beach condos and strip malls.  Beaches were certainly less crowded here so might be a better place to hit the surf if that’s on your agenda.

We stopped at Seal Beach first.  This is a nice little town which grew up around the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.  25 years ago, when I was in 12th SFG, we used to go to Seal Beach NWS for training or to have our Family Day on a private (government) beach.  The NWS is still there but extremely quiet.  Kind of wonder how it avoided BRAC!  Anyway, the community is very nice and quaint with a pier to wander along and nice little shops around.

Then on to Huntington Beach.  This is definitely where the money is!  Lots of yachts and fancy restaurants.

I got a kick out of a very unique structure here.  Someone had taken an old water tower and turned it into a multi-story home.  I investigated and found that it was actually a vacation rental.  Great if you are in to exercise as you need to climb three stories just to get to the front door.  If you want to rent it, it is going for $3500/ wk. and you can find the website here.  Give us a review if any of you are adventurous (and wealthy) enough.  The fascinating history of the project is here.

With that we headed back along the 405 freeway to LAX.  Nice to get out of the airport for a little while when doing a mileage run.  Upgraded on the redeye home too!