We’ve had such a cool summer in Southern California but last weekend a heat wave landed on our doorstep with a thud. At 5:00 p.m., it’s 103 degrees outside and feels like a scorching Texas, fry-eggs-on-the-sidewalk summer day!
After running errands, I stepped into Barnes and Noble to cool off before coming home and turning on the AC. My home office upstairs with plantation shutters shut tight is now tolerable.
To escape Sunday’s heat, we headed down the Pacific Coast Highway to Crystal Cove in Laguna. Our blue Pacific was refeshingly cold. I spent the morning riding the waves, bodysurfing. Just two weekends ago, the days were so overcast that I was the only one in the water but yesterday O.C. residents dotted the beach with their umbrellas in hot tropical colors. After putting up ours, we rushed in the water.
After bodysurfing, I swam behind the green crystalline waves, ocassionally swimming out to a large one that was cresting. After swimming most of the morning, we sought the shade of our umbrella and read Sunday’s LA Times, refreshed again by the sound of the pounding surf, knowing the cool water was just a quick dash from where we sat. Here we were twenty minutes from home, enjoying a mini-vacation. Loved it!
So our REAL taste of summer came after Labor Day! We may yet have a furnace of an October as Santa Ana winds sweep in from the desert. When they do, I’m heading for the beach!
Tags: Eugenia Francis