Best Place to Live – A Day in the Life

by Bob Sparrow

Top10A couple of recent ‘Best Place to Live’ surveys reminded me of my business travel days when I crisscrossed the country and would often be asked where I was from. When I responded, “Southern California, Orange County”, I would hear things like, “Oh, a surfer dude”, (I’ve never surfed), or “Oh, is that why you wear those cool shades?” (I wear sunglasses BECAUSE IT’S SUNNY THERE!), or, “Aren’t you afraid that an earthquake is going to cast California into the Pacific Ocean?” (No). If the conversation continues, people feel compelled to remind me that, 1) there are too many people in southern California, 2) the traffic is unbearable, and 3) the air is unbreathable.  Then, feeling the need to ‘throw me a bone’, they’d say, “But the weather’s nice” and then they’d remind me of the earthquakes again.

Last week in a California survey done by Movato Real Estate, I discovered that my city of residence for the last 38 years, Orange, was selected as California’s best city to live in.  In fact, Orange County had seven of the top ten cities.  If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the cities, here’s the link to the survey:

http://www.movoto.com/ca/best-places-in-california/

I hope everyone feels that they live in the ‘Best Place to Live’, but I wanted to confirm and perhaps help justify this elevated status for Orange County, so last Friday, February 27, I set out to help prove that it is, in fact, one of the very best places to live, in part due to its proximity to such a diversity of environments. Thus my journey began . . .

The Desert

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pre-dawn at Desert Willow Golf Resort

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Sunrise for a perfect day of golf

I woke up at 3:45 a.m. (The things I do for you readers!) and with an assortment of wardrobes in tow, I’m out the door at 4:05. It takes me 95 minutes to drive the 103 miles from Orange to the beautiful Desert Willows Golf Resort in Palm Desert – golf’s winter mecca. It feels like I’m in a whole different world, because I am. It’s 50 degree at 6:18 when the first sliver of sunlight appears over the  Little San Bernardino Mountain range and softly lightens the Coachella Valley below.  It will get to 77 degrees here today. I’m envious of the golfers that are teeing off at first light in perfect weather, but I have a full day ahead of me, so I order breakfast, read the paper, write some of this blog and then head to my next destination.

The Mountains

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Photo taken from the sun deck

DSC01796I cover the next 85 miles to Big Bear Mountain in 115 minutes and arrive at Snow Valley Ski Resort where the cloudless sky is deep azure blue. I’ve gone from an elevation of around 200 feet to around 7,000 feet in less than two hours. It will get down to 21 degrees here this evening.  Bear Big Mountain provides great local skiing and snowboarding in the winter and great hiking trails in the summer.  There was a storm last week and another one coming in this weekend, but I am fortunate to find a window where chains are not required to negotiate the assent on this winding mountain road.  Once at Snow Valley, I step out of my car and take a deep breath and feel immediately exhilarated by a blast of fresh mountain air – this is air that no one has breathed before!  I enjoy a cup of coffee as I hang out on the upper sun deck of the lodge watching the skiers on the mountain and wishing I were amongst them. I make a snowball, because I haven’t done that in years, and throw it at a nearby tree . . . and miss. While I’m in the neighborhood, I decide DSC01799to head over to picturesque Lake Arrowhead – another 25 minutes and 14 miles. Back in ‘the day’, Lake Arrowhead was the mountain retreat for many Hollywood stars including, Shirley Temple, Tom Selleck, Patrick Swayze and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys (photo at right is one I took of Wilson’s former lake house) to name a few. Today Arrowhead Village  it’s fairly quiet; it’s off season – no boats on the lake, no stars in sight!  Time to head down off the mountain.

The Beach

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Huntington Beach sunset

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Huntington Beach pier

I drop from 7,000 feet to . . . zero – sea level, as I drive 87 miles in just under two hours from Lake Arrowhead to Huntington Beach. I could have gone to any number of great beaches in Orange County from Seal Beach to San Clemente, including tony Newport Beach or artsy Laguna Beach, but I wanted to visit my favorite beach restaurant, Dukes at Huntington Beach – ‘Surf City’. I find a place at the bar and watch surfers and street entertainers as the sun disappears slowly and beautifully into the Pacific Ocean.  My day is complete – sunrise to sunset.

I do understand that proximity to the desert, mountains and beach is not everything, but it just adds to all the other factors that make Orange County a ‘best place to live’.

I make the 23-mile trek back home exhausted, but feeling great about completing the ‘trifecta’ – desert, mountains and ocean all in one day. Next time I’m thinking it should be the ‘Trifecta Triathlon’ – same venues only I play golf, ski and swim.  Maybe not.

PS: For those wondering – 312 miles

Stardate: 1968 – John Lennon and the Sawdust Festival

by Bob Sparrow

     My road trip last week utilized time travel and took me back to the 60s, not age-wise, I’m already back in the 60s age-wise, thank you; I’m talking time-wise, like in the 1960’s – you know hippies, free love, smoking banana peels and that kind of thing.  My time travel vehicle was the Laguna Beach Sawdust Festival – not a celebration of sawdust as the name might imply, but rather the annual arts and crafts festival showing off the wares of artist from Laguna Beach.

     When it originally started in 1965 it featured things like macramé dream catchers, hand-crafted turquoise peace medallions, ceramic mushrooms, guys with long hair and sandals singing anti-war songs and art work from various mediums.  Today, it features macramé dream catchers, hand-crafted turquoise peace medallions, ceramic mushrooms (pictured below), . . .  Yep, pretty much the same stuff, but the exhibitors never intended it to be another stuffy art show.

     In fact they were originally part of that ‘stuffy art show’, the Laguna Festival of Arts, when they broke away in protest of something (remember protesting anything was very popular in those days) to form their own, not-so-stuffy festival, they wanted to make it, in the parlance of the day, a ‘happening’.  The media tagged this new exhibit ‘The Rejects Festival’.  Thank goodness they used sawdust to cover the mud and dust of their new home as it provided a less-negative, albeit somewhat obscure, name for their annual show of arts and crafts.  In spite of, or maybe because of, the name, it’s been going strong ever since.

    The festival grounds are in a Eucalyptus grove less than a mile from Laguna’s Main Beach, so the sea air, the stand of Eucalyptus and the various water features therein, provide a welcome cooling relief from the summer heat.  Stepping through the portal of this time warp, I am immediately hit with the smell of sawdust which permeates the entire three acre grounds; I can hear a lone, male singer in the distance (sounds like he’s wearing sandals), strumming his acoustical guitar and protesting something, and in front of me is something I don’t see every day – a place to purchase goblets and gourds.

     I strolled from booth to booth examining the various works of art and often stopped to talk with the artist who were more than willing to discuss their craft.  Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered, ‘What were they thinking?’ well here was the chance to ask them.  I watched glass being blown, I watched an artist paint a picture of a hamburger because she was hungry, I saw jewelry being shaped and welded, I saw clay pots being thrown – you know what I mean,  and I saw . . . wait a minute, was that John Lennon sitting in the booth making something?  I thought I could hear Give Peace a Chance playing in the distance.

      There’s always something playing in the distance at the Sawdust Festival, sometimes several acts at once playing at three different venues throughout the grounds.  If 60s rock is your thing then you’d enjoy the Flatland Mountain Rock Band; or try Acoustic Roots who are purveyors of Bohemian Surf music (didn’t even know that was a genre); or if you want your Ska Dub Roots vibe going try Worm & the Night Crawlers.  If you just want some good old country rock, then catch Sean Wiggins & the Lone Goat.  The Lone Goat?     And . . . wait is that John Lennon singing Woman, or is that a woman singing John Lennon?  Geez, for a guy who’s been dead for almost 32 years, he sure gets around.  I headed over to the field of ceramic mushrooms.

      I passed on the mushrooms, but I bought two prints and a pair of earrings for my wife, who tolerates my wanderlust, and headed for the exit as night was falling on the festival.  As I crossed the parking lot the unmistakable smell of cannabis rented the air and extended my ‘trip’ to the 60s a few minutes more.

      It was a most delightful afternoon; I sang Imagine in the car all the way home.