California Wedding
Adam and I took a quick, three day trip to California for our friends' wedding last weekend. We arrived at LAX late Thursday night, drove our rental car to West Hollywood, and stayed with a musician/screenwriter from AirBnB that night who lived just off Sunset Boulevard. In the morning, we had breakfast at Javista, checked out Madame Tussauds (photos to come), enjoyed the views along Mulholland Drive, and bummed around Hollywood until it was time to head back to LAX to scoop up our friend Jen who was also flying in for the wedding.
After we picked up Jen, we checked out Venice Beach and walked along the water. I had no idea "Muscle Beach" was an actual gym outdoors! It was pretty cool to see. We all took turns doing pull-ups, and Jen showed up all the guys on the speed bag.
We continued down the beach to Santa Monica Pier and spent a few hours wandering around the amusement park there. It was $8 each to ride the tiny roller coaster, but I'm so glad we did! It was surprisingly a lot of fun.
That evening, we drove to Ventura and spent the night at the Sheraton Hotel which was situated right on the water. We left for Santa Paula the next morning and made our way to the wedding held at the Limoneira Ranch. It was a beautiful ceremony and I loved how we were tucked away in this cozy space between lines of lemon trees. So dreamy! We played bocce ball, ate delicious food, and danced all night. Congrats, Chris and Kamala!
Since Adam had other friends flying in from all over for the wedding, we were able to meet up with them in the morning for breakfast and more beach time before parting ways.
We hung out at Lucky Llama Coffee in Carpinteria and then walked to Carpinteria Beach which is also known as "The World's Safest Beach," and is rated the #1 swimming beach in California. I believe it! The town had a Gilmore Girls vibe. It was just so lovely! Allison is actually from Carpinteria and I'm so jealous!
We loved the beach so much, we almost made Jen miss her flight! It was about a two-hour drive back to LAX from Carpinteria and we were milking every minute we had before it was time to go. We got to the airport with 45 minutes to spare before Jen's flight took off, but she made it! Our flight to Seattle wasn't until later that night, so obviously we went back to the beach. I mean... What else is there to do??
Adam's friend, Daniel saw that we were in Los Angeles and just so happened to be visiting from NYC for the week, so we were able to squeeze in a few hours with him on Manhattan Beach. All in all, I'd say we made great use of our time in California and we're already trying to figure out when we can make it back. There's just something so alluring about the Golden State...