Solana Beach

It is always interesting to see how many cultures and subcultures there are in the state of California. Geographically, it is third in size in the U.S. after Alaska and Texas, but it is the largest in terms of population. Berkeley has an urban/academic vibe, Santa Rosa is definitely about wine…growing the grapes, making the wine, bottling it and drinking it. Los Angeles is all about 'the business'…movies, television, music and money. There are celebrity chefs, celebrity hairdressers, celebrity doctors and, well, you get the picture
The beach communities are laid back. You can actually swim in the water without a wet suit and bikinis and lifeguard stands are plentiful. There are lots of floppy hats, wet hair, flip-flops and beach cover-ups.

My 'Italian' niece spends every summer in Solana Beach with her daughter, Emma, who will be 11 next month and is already fluent in two languages.  Rick, Meg, OilMan and I drove down to visit her today. Annie's husband Davide usually joins them in August.  One or two of the hoard of cousins who all live in their small Italian town of Saluzzo usually join them.  This year it was Lucila,who is 13 and flew by herself from Torino to Los Angeles with a stopover in Frankfurt.  She reminds me of my granddaughter, Claire. I hope the 'cousins' all get a chance to get together this summer, but with the amount of driving involved and the schedules, it is hard to find a time. I'm glad we were able to get down there to visit them. 

We're always struck by how much time we spend in the car when we come to Southern California, and joke about the number of different freeways it takes to get anywhere  Typical directions sound like ''You take the 101 to the 91, to the 210 to the 15"). Whole apps exist for the sole purpose of telling you the fastest way to get to your destination, and people have whole conversations about which app is the best one. We're grateful to Meg for taking on the driving duties today for the trip from Fallbrook to Solana Beach and back. She commented as we were driving down the driveway that she had driven almost 100 miles today.

Dinner tonight will be al fresco on the terrace….