A Malibu Christmas

Roger here....   Well, we moved from the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to sunny (hah!)  Malibu.  The Malibu Beach RV Park sits on a bluff overlooking the Dan Blocker Beach on the Pacific Coast Highway, a walk away from Cher's house.  Our stay here is our  (Dianne and my) Christmas gifts to each other.  This is a high-end place -- highlighted by the spectacular views.  When you can see them.

We arrived on Sunday, a windy, wet day.  The first of many.   Our site is on a bluff with a direct view of the beach.  Sweet.  The Pacific Coast Highway is directly below us, but because we are on a cliff we cannot see it.  We had the option of backing in or pulling in so that we could see the ocean from the front. 

 Obviously, we pulled in.  It was a pain to run the hookups diagonally under the motor home to the hook-up station, but the view was worth it --  gray though it was.   

The view looked a little more festive after dark, but note the wet drops on the windshield.  They did not disappear for days.  (The Merry Christmas scroll was my Mom's -- good memories).


RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, RAIN....  If you followed the news this week, you know that it rained constantly here.  When they closed the Pacific Coast Highway just north of us (still closed) due to a mudslide over the roadway, we were a little concerned about our motor home -- and us.  Remember we are on a vertical bluff directly over the highway.  Being from the flatlands, we really did not understand the mudslide thing.  Now we do.  We took a couple of pics of the dirt bluffs south of us along the Pacific Coast Highway (where it's still open), to show how scary it could be.

Watching the ocean, what we could see of it, was fascinating for us, but after a while the gloomy view forced us to find something else to do.  I read a novel on my Kindle.  Dianne became domestic, preparing to cook some of our daughter, Robyn's, favorite foods for Christmas day.  

(Dianne here:  Robyn has been performing on cruise ships the past two years, so this is the first holiday we've been able to spend with her since Thanksgiving 2007.   We had a fun evening at El Torito's last night, and I wanted to take a photo of her with her ever-present iPhone.  She kept making faces at me at the last minute, and after ten tries, I finally got one.  By that time I was laughing and giggling so hard it was difficult to hold the camera still.

Wednesday morning....   Look!  Is that a bright area under the dark gray clouds?  I think it is.  We have not seen a bright spot in the sky for who knows when.  

Notice the line in the ocean that separates the dark water from the brown water?  The brown water is obviously run-off from a nearby canyon.  Interesting for a former science teacher.  Glad that we and our motor home are not part of the run-off!

When I took the "boys" for their morning walk on Wednesday, it was clear enough to get a couple of shots of our motor home above the pathway.  

The dog-walk area here is probably the most scenic of any we have experienced, even though Chaplin is not always inspired to pee.  He's been known to stubbornly go two days without peeing if the conditions aren't to his liking.  Probably too pretty!?

After our walk, we were finally able to enjoy the view from our picnic table in front of the motor home.

I can see CLEARLY now the rain is gone!  Dianne (not me) took some beautiful sunset pictures.

Soon to come...  Three days with our daughter, Robyn:  the Getty art museum, shopping and a movie, and a quiet Christmas day looking at the beach and eating Dianne's delicious food.  The only way to make it more perfect would be to have our other daughter, Amanda, and our granddaughter, Kaia, with us as well.  Maybe.... some time in the future?


The Whippet Picture of the Day....  Chaplin -- having a nightmare of five days of rain making it difficult for his gentle bladder to pee on command.