Antiquing in Summerland, CA

Over Easter weekend, my sister and I road tripped up the coast from Los Angeles to the Santa Barbara area.

We’ve booked a night at a campground up there (Refugio State Beach — more on that tomorrow) and we have the whole afternoon ahead of us with no formal plans.

We hop in the car around 11am, grab coffee from Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake, and head north on the 101. We cut through Las Virgenes canyon to the PCH, opting for a longer but more scenic route up the coast.

That rock in the distance is Point Mugu, just north of Malibu. How pretty is that water?

There’s a giant sand dune along this beach and several people attempt to climb it. I have flashbacks to surfing sand dunes in New Zealand and Kangaroo Island, Australia.

We skip the dunes and press on to Ventura. A few years ago on our way back from camping and kayaking in the Channel Islands, we ate at a delicious (and cheap) seafood place in Ventura Harbor called Andria’s. It’s an easy decision to return here for lunch.

Sister seafood lunch!

Beth orders the fried oysters and raves about them.

Over lunch we turn to Google Maps and pick our next stop. Summerland stands out to me — wasn’t there a CW show by that name on the air a few years ago? (Yup, from 2004-2005 starring Lori Laughlin, Jesse McCartney, and a young Zac Efron.) Surely if it inspired a TV show then it must be pretty?

We get off the exit and 30 seconds later we’re at this park by the beach.

Those views…! We are so spoiled in southern California. The entire coastline is similarly stunning.

The only bummer about beaches along the Santa Barbara coastline is their proximity to offshore oil rigs. Occasionally beads of oil wash up onto the sand… and stain the feet of unsuspecting beach-goers. And those stains are tough to get off! (Turns out baby oil does the trick and I’ll bring some on future trips to this area.) Plus there’s sand flies along the coast, so no one really sits out for long. It’s gorgeous to walk, though.