It was planned as a sweet and warm ending of the year. I wanted to check out few Orange county beaches before heading to Oceanside and San Diego.
On a Wednesday night, we stayed in the middle of nowhere near Interstate 5. When I woke up, I saw an apricot field, mountains in the distance and entirely overcast sky. But even taking into the account how dramatically could differ weather in the valley and on the SoCal coast, I understood that we wouldn’t see blue sky that day at all.
The initial plan contained Newport Beach and Laguna Beach (honestly, I wanted to see Laguna Beach badly!).

Newport Beach

We drove through LA pretty quickly. I even cannot recall any significant traffic. But anyway it was somewhere near 2 PM when we finally put our foot on the sand of the beach near Newport Beach Pier.
So I wanted to check two piers and walk a bit. A good plan but I realize it hardly makes a possible visit to Laguna Beach… Additionally, we clearly saw the upcoming storm. It was beautiful. But it was bizarre! 🙂

So the plan for the day was decreased to walk from Newport Pier to Balboa Pier and back. What we actually did.

San Clemente

We stayed at the hotel at Dana Point. The room had excellent (and that’s why it was expensive as hell) view on the ocean. And it undoubtedly the right place to sip wine and watch the sunset. But weather pushed us close to the fireplace.
Morning brought a pause in the showers. And a chance to visit the nearest places. So with all my respect for the beauty of SoCal beaches, I decided that San Clemente is a better choice. It has a pier 🙂

Oceanside

If San Clemente was unplanned stop, Oceanside was on my list. I mean Oceanside Pier.

And it was worth it. Piers are always fun places with fishermen, crabs, seagulls that want you to photo them. I recall cats and dogs, pythons but I hardly remember any other place where I saw so many pelicans.