Ruralite Cafe: Published 04/05/01

By Lisa Majors-Duff News Editor

'Home, Sweet Home' vs. 'Man's Best Friend'

When I say "bright and early," I mean what our host and hostess would call obscenely early - about 5:45 a.m. Noticing how quiet the house and the Huntington Beach neighborhood were, I forced myself to stay in bed another 15 minutes. But that was all I could stand. Neither my body nor mind were yet registering Pacific Standard Time, and I wanted to get up and out and see and do.

Understanding at once my desire to explore, our host offered Greg and me his bicycles and gave us directions to the beach. Within minutes, we found ourselves peddling across the Pacific Coast Highway and onto a path cluttered with other early risers - a few more bikers, lots of joggers, a handful of rollerbladders and rubber-clad, surfer dudes carrying their boards toward the waves. It was a California postcard - "Wish you were here!"

When we returned to the house about an hour later and told Niki we'd put our toes in the Pacific Ocean, nothing would do until she was allowed the same experience - not even the NCAA Tournament game pitting the University of Arizona against whoever. Our hosts, Jeff and Caiti, along with my husband, are all graduates of the U of A. So I offered to take Niki and do some exploring on our own until the game was over.

"No. We'll go to Newport Beach and find a bar with a TV," Jeff said, already looking for his 5-year-old son's new flip-flops.

The day turned out to be the nicest of the year so far in Southern California, Jeff said. The sun was warm, the ocean breeze was cooling and the people swarmed. On the way to Newport, we experienced our first traffic jam. Check that off the "Things To Do While in California" list, I thought.

After watching the children splash briefly in the chilly surf, the guys were itching for a score. Luckily for us all, we found a bar with a TV right next door to a swimsuit shop. The kids were happy when we found an ice cream shop a couple doors down. California truly has it all and more, we decided.

With Greg in the driver's seat and me navigating with the map, we left Huntington Beach Monday morning for LAX to pick up Niki's grandmother, who flew over from Phoenix. From then until our hotel check-in time of 3 p.m. we toured the hot spots. Marina Del Ray was just north on the Pacific Coast Highway, and Venice (a.k.a. Muscle) Beach, was just a few miles beyond that. I ended up getting my new bathing suit in Venice, a two-piece black number that could be a long time in the drawer considering the unspring-like weather we're having now in Western North Carolina.

From Muscle Beach, we headed north through Santa Monica until we intersected with Sunset Boulevard. We followed this stretch of road to the famous Bel Air and the even more famous Beverly Hills. From here we took a right onto Rodeo Drive, but for some reason Greg would not stop the car, even though I swore I only wanted to take a few pictures.

Taking a left, we found ourselves on Wilshire Boulevard and at the La Brea Tar Pits. Niki'd had enough of the car at this point, so we took in the museum and had lunch across the street at a California Kitchen. Next was Hollywood Boulevard, the Walk of Fame, Mann's Chinese Theater and the original Frederick's of Hollywood. If we'd hung around a few hours, we might have seen Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sigourney Weaver, Gene Hackman and Ray Liotta at the red-carpet premier of "The Heartbreakers," but the day was drawing long, and none of us wanted to be on Hollywood Boulevard after dark.

It was time to hit the freeway again, head toward Anaheim and rest up for Tuesday's California Adventure. Disney's newest theme park takes the best the Golden State has to offer and crams it into 55 acres of fun. From the water ride through Grizzly Peak to the sourdough bread made in Mickey's image on the Pacific Wharf to the 3-D Muppet Movie on the miniature Hollywood backlot, the park was everything Niki imagined until we discovered my daughter was 3 inches too short to ride the rollercoater she'd been "California Dreamin'² about for nearly two weeks. There were no tears, but she was totally bummed for a while.

Leaving Greg in California for two more days of conferencing, Niki and I caught a 5:45 a.m. shuttle back to LAX Wednesday morning. Even that early we could tell the day was shaping up to be another nice one, so we decided not to carry our coats, though we'd been forewarned about the snow back home. We'd also been warned about a stray dog now calling my back stoop home, but both the snow and the dog seemed a world away as we boarded our flight.

With the benefit of hindsight, unpacked coats would have been nice when we arrived in Greenville. (Close Cafe readers will remember my pre-California story said we were flying out of Asheville, but the airline cancelled our original flight and asked if we would mind driving to South Carolina to catch our plane to Charlotte.)

A hot, juicy steak would have come in handy when we finally arrived home at 10:30 p.m., because the stray dog our neighbor had been feeding for three days made it abundantly clear with furious barks and gigantic teeth that he did not know us and was not going to let us in our own house.

Back down the driveway, which was covered in 6 inches of snow, wearing the sandals I'd slipped on a lifetime ago in Anaheim, I went to the neighbor's house. She'd been feeding the dog; she should do the introductions, I figured. She did so in her pajamas and snow boots, allowing us to collapse on the sofa, exhausted from the journey but not ready for bed. After all, it was only 8 p.m. in California.

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