We decided to spend a month during the summer heat seeing the California and Oregon Coasts. Living in the desert, it's nice to see water for awhile. We started at Oceanside- Lots of nice beaches and families with kids. We stayed in a tiny studio at The Blue Whale, which was a timeshare exchange – and probably the worst one we have ever had. The location was good however, right by the beach. We went to Laguna Beach one day. More nice beaches with lots of big sailboats in the harbor. Some nice shopping here, too. We visited the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park and their Dino Mountain of large animated dinosaurs. |
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We moved to Dana Point as we were going to Catalina Island and the ferry left from there. There isn't much else in Dana Point . Catalina is a nice little tourist area with a few blocks of walking area where the stores are. The tour to the interior of the island was disappointing as there was nothing else to see except a tiny airport at the end of the tour. While in this area we also saw the Mission at San Juan Capistrano. |
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| Santa Barbara was next. We were only there 2 nights and that was not enough. We stayed at the Hotel Santa Barbara, which is downtown and walking distance to all the nice shops. There is a Nordstrom, Macy's, gift shops, galleries, etc. The beach area has an arts and crafts fair every Sunday, with excellent and a few unique things for sale. There are also a lot of very good restaurants in the area. We will certainly go back to this area again |  |
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