Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Crystal loves Crystal Cove

Written: Saturday, March 15th – Huntington Beach, CA

Went to “The Sanctuary” for a Saturday evening service. It was a nice church but the pastor was way too slick for us. He was tres high fashion - the definition of cool. His profile in the Sunday bulletin features various pictures of him with photo-shoot quality. They highlight his skills as an ex-pro skater, his dashing good looks, great fashion sense and of course his beautiful wife. Again, is this a California thing?

Sunday, March 16th – Palm Sunday – Huntington Beach, CA

Since the Saturday evening service wasn’t quite what we were looking for we went in search of another Sunday morning. We found ourselves at the Sea Coast church upon the recommendation of Glen. It was by far our biggest church we have ever been to. The sermon was about the importance of not playing “the game” (the game being "keeping up with the Jones"). He spoke about how revolutions historically have been about TAKING power and how ultimately this will not get us anywhere except in another situation of power imbalance. He presented Jesus' teaching on GIVING power. A concept that in todays world is a bit… well… revolutionary, as much as when Jesus first suggested this idea to his Disciples.

Monday, March 17th , St. Patrick’s Day – Crystal Cove, CA

We went to Crystal Cove State Park today. Its free during weekdays - a benefit of traveling in the off season. It’s funny that you see a lot of sights saying “closed – off season”. In Canada, half the country would be out on a beautiful day like today. Here in California, however it’s too cold for locals. Walking along the beach we saw a pod of dolphins off shore! So exciting! Our long walk on the beach led us to the Crystal Cove cottages. These are old, abandoned homes from the 1920’s, old squatter cottages put together by beach bums and runaway C.E.O’s looking to escape from their busy lives. People have lived in these homes as a community up until 2001 when they were evicted to make way for a beach-front resort. People freaked out and protested. The compromise, was to instead restore the cottages to their former glory. Today you can rent them out for the night at a capped price of $150. It’s pretty fun to think of a community of people who ran away from it all to live on the beach. They gathered together for sunset cocktails, surfing, and beach parties.







Tuesday, March 18th San Clemente, CA

SO from now on we will be traveling down the coast highway. Passing through the beach towns along the way. The view is beautiful, I can’t seem to capture it’s grandeur in a photograph.

2 comments:

Chinner said...

Hah! Great pix. I can totally see Geoff setting the camera up on a self-timer and running down to sit beside Crystal for the perfect shot...are those a trail of foot prints?

What an amazing trip! I miss you guys. Hey, the Pink House is possible... even in SW Ontario.

shopruche.com said...

Hi Crystal, do you know where you can go to rent those beach shacks? It would be a perfect place for a photo shoot I'm working on. Thanks!