I finally got a chance to put on those hiking shoes that have been taking up space in my trunk up until now.

I cut over to the coast at Huntington Beach from Anaheim, after a quick pit stop to give the car a bath and to mail home about 25 pounds and two cubic feet of stuff that I'd overpacked. The trunk is a roomier place now, which is nice.

The drive up the coast was alternately pretty and traffic-filled, which I suppose is par for the course with seaside towns. They were working frantically to keep the highway from sliding into the ocean at Rancho Palos Verdes, but just past that I happened upon a beach that looked interesting, so I made a quick pit stop.

"Abalone Cove" had some steep, rocky shoreline, but also had several areas of pretty neat tide pools. I put on my hiking shoes, and spent some time traipsing around the rocks and looking at all the critters in the tide pools. There were crabs, starfish, anemones, urchins, and a few little fish, but I didn't see any actual abalone or octopus. I'd imagine those are pretty popular.

After my little nature hike, I continued up to my hotel at Venice Beach, where the Venice Beach scene was in full swing. There are apparently a lot of Datsun fans in Venice, as so far this is the spot where I've gotten the most people commenting or asking about the car. I thought they were all stoners and flower children, but apparently they're car fans too...must come with your California citizenship.