Huntington Beach, California
November 11th-November 17th
Where do I even begin? Huntington Beach gave us all the feels.
The first thing I remember about driving into LA (At this point we were about an hour away from Huntington Beach) was that we passed a small, outdated red convertible. The driver was clutching a handle of vodka with his right hand and was holding his phone in his left hand. We passed him so quickly that I don’t know if he had his knee on the wheel or what. All I know is he cut across a few lanes with no blinker and zoomed away ahead of us. We learned quickly that this type of driving was not out of the ordinary in so cal (minus the alcohol part).
After settling into our spot at Waterfront RV Park on Wednesday evening, we met up with my buddy Rob and got to meet his amazing girlfriend, Ngoc. I met Rob in college as freshman and during our junior year we studied abroad together in Australia. They picked us up and took us to Dukes for dinner, which is a restaurant right alongside the Huntington Beach Pier. I had the herb crusted mahi mahi, which was to die for and Mike enjoyed the Ahi Tuna steak which he said was the best one he’s ever had. The margaritas weren’t too bad either. The restaurant was named after Duke Kahanamoku, a legendary Hawaiian surfer who came here in 1925 and introduced the sport. Surfing quickly became popular and spread along the coast of California, eventually making it to Huntington Beach, where the nickname Surf City USA came from. After dinner, we walked along Main Street in Downtown Huntington where Ngoc and I bought cozy Huntington Surf and Sport sweatshirts (We couldn’t resist their softness) We ended our evening with a couple socially distanced drinks at a super cool bar called Baja Sharkeez.
On Thursday morning one of my best friends from High School, Jenna and her dog Hazel picked us up and took us to the famous dog beach where Hazel showed Berkley the ropes. They played fetch with all sorts of dogs and ran into the ocean. Luckily, Berk is smart enough to know not to drink the salt water, he just runs through it and then gets really excited and does his sprints around everyone. After the dogs covered Jenna’s car in sand, Jenna left for work and Mike and I hung out on our “patio”, soaking in our first bits of sunshine. Mike had never been surfing, so I called around and eventually booked a lesson for the following morning. I hesitated for a split second, knowing the temperature of the air would only be around 65 degrees and the water temperature would be about ten degrees below that. My slight hesitation passed quickly knowing there was snow back home and the opportunity to take surf lessons in Southern California would not likely come again anytime soon.
We walked Berkley around the RV park and found that one of our neighbors was indeed a pot belly pig. Berk almost ripped the skin off my hand trying to get as close as he could to the pig. He definitely knew it wasn’t a dog. The pig snorted a couple times at us and turned around, giving us the hint that we should probably move on. Mike and I biked into downtown Huntington Beach, where we visited beachy shops, walked along the pier and enjoyed sushi on Main Street. The sushi was unbelievable and I couldn’t even tell you what we ate. They had to have had 40+ sushi roll options, so we kind of randomly ordered, knowing we couldn’t go wrong ordering California sushi a stone’s throw from the ocean. We followed the bike path about a mile along the beach, back to our homebase (Not knowing it’d be our last bike ride on those bikes).
For dinner we headed to Jenna’s house in Fountain Valley, only sevenish minutes from Huntington Beach. Her boyfriend Luke was in charge of the grill and made us some mean burgers, while Jenna whipped up a yummy dip and one of her famous charcuterie boards. Her house was pretty sweet and we got to meet her handful of roommates who lived there too. The backyard was my favorite, as it had a lemon tree and an unknown fruit tree (It looked like a mix between a tomato and an orange) alongside the hot tub and pool area. Our friend, David from High School drove down from LA and joined the big group of us for dinner that night. It was so nice catching up with them and walking down memory lane as it related to Vestal High School. Berk made himself at home immediately by finding all of Hazel and Karli’s dog toys. Yes, I met another dog with my name, except this Karli was a big husky who could probably kill me in two seconds if I looked at her the wrong way. You could tell she was territorial, but for some reason she liked Berk.
I mentally committed myself to doing sunrise yoga near the beach the next morning and I did just that. It was only slightly different than planned… I was told to go to the Northside of the pier and meet at lifeguard stand 11. Apparently being slightly hungover and freezing at 6am fogged my brain, because I walked about twenty minutes to lifeguard stand 11 to find out that I was on the Southside of the pier. After realizing I was alone, other than a couple surfer dudes in the water, I laid my pink mat out and did my own, homemade, yoga flow (Mainly child’s pose). When I was done, I hurried back to the camper and got back into bed until we had to wake up for our 10am surf lesson.
Unfortunately the early morning yoga and additional sleep did not cure my hangover in the slightest. (Also, side note, grocery stores in California do not sell alcohol. You have to go to a liquor store, even for beer, seltzers, etc.) We swallowed a couple banana nut muffins, slurped down our coffee and headed to sunset beach, where we met Bob, our surf instructor. Bob immediately put off good vibes. He drove a Jeep Wrangler and had our blue and pink surfboards sticking out the back. After a brief introduction, Bob gave us our fundamental lesson on land, taught us how to “buddy carry” and we headed straight for the water. We charged right in knowing the wet suits would keep us fairly comfortable. I had been surfing once before in Bali, Indonesia when I was there for mid-semester break from my semester abroad in Australia, so I had an idea of how it all went down. Bob instructed us on how to spin around, look over our shoulders and count to three before standing up while catching a wave. I paddled hard and next thing I knew I was standing up, surfing in toward the shoreline. Mike said Bob looked at him in surprise and said “Nobody does that.” Before I get too cocky, I have to mention that I didn’t catch every wave. As the hour and a half went on, my limbs started to become so numb to the point where I’d try to stand on my board, but actually couldn’t feel my toes enough to get into position and I’d get rocked pretty hard by a wave. The water temperature or newness to the sport didn’t seem to affect my husband in the least. He also stood up immediately and caught almost every wave that followed after, with little assistance from Bob. (Yeah, I know it’s annoying that Mike’s good at literally everything he tries… but I secretly love it at the same time). When our hour and a half came to an end, we trekked through the sand back toward the parking lot and at this point I felt as if I was walking on peg legs. I couldn’t feel my toes at all. They were tingly, numb and hoping I’d find them warm socks soon.
Michael hung out with Berk which is when we realized he wasn’t feeling well. I spent some time in the jacuzzi before we took turns taking hot showers before our guests showed up. Our first “Party” in the Dutchmen consisted of the five of us drinking Cadillac margaritas, jamming to the Freaky Friday soundtrack and eating queso and chips. Luke tends to make his margs a bit stronger than most, because by the time we got to Bear Flag Fish Company for dinner, I knew It’d be best if I didn’t interact with the woman taking our order. Mike ordered us a large poke bowl to split, which was delicious (Again, we were a stones throw from the ocean and this place was famous for their poke apparently). I begged for a souvenir hat, which is humorous retrospectively, because we have a shared bank account, but regardless, the hat rocks. I think I’ve worn it everyday. I needed one of those Cali flat brims you know? The Bungalow and Old Crow bars were closed due to Covid, so we headed back to the camper for an ice cream sandwich party.
Saturday morning greeted us with the realization that our bikes were stolen during the night. Our lock was cut right in half, which could have only been done by someone with bolt cutters. WHO DOES THAT? Our lock hung right off the bumper, destroyed. I immediately got upset, first at the fact that someone had the audacity to steal bikes that were locked to our bumper that sat right below where we slept. We rode our bikes everywhere on this trip. Since Mike doesn’t like to run, it has been our favorite way to spend time together. I was angry that we bought those bikes with money we got from our wedding day. When we first lived together in Fairport, NY we bought them at a local bike shop. They matched. Mine was neon orange and Mike’s was neon green. You could spot them from a mile away and that’s why we think someone scoped them out and decided to steal ours. They were Specialized mountain bikes, not the $100 beach cruisers that could be found up and down the bike path. Our “neighbors” had left 15+ bikes out, unlocked right across from us and none of them were touched. As we walked around asking people if they had anything stolen and telling them what happened, most people (All Californians) responded similarly, saying things like “Oh yeah, people take what they want here.” or “Yep, that happens all the time.” We filed a police report and spoke to the RV park security guard who said we could watch the footage from Friday night, first thing Monday morning. Come to find out, there was no footage, because the cameras weren’t even working. We checked the local Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and Huntington Beach Stolen Bike site (Yes, that’s a real thing), and had no luck at all.
At this point, Berk was really not feeling well. We think he may have gotten into garbage at Jenna’s house when we weren’t watching him closely. He was throwing up every couple of hours and having diarrhea continuously. Keep in mind, we were essentially staying in a parking lot, so when he didn’t make it to the designated “Pet area”, we were scrubbing his throw up off the blacktop, with an audience of course. The previous night when our bikes were stolen, Mike and I barely slept, because we were constantly waking up to tend to Berk having to go to the bathroom. Around 4am, Mike thought he heard something behind the camper and even poked his head out to see, but didn’t see anything so he went back to sleep and didn’t think much of it until the next day. If Berk had been feeling well, there’s no doubt he would have barked or alerted us in some way. He’s very protective and aware like that. That afternoon, Jenna and I spent a few hours in Costa Mesa where we went to the anti-mall. The anti-mall is an outdoor space that is super unique. Some of the trees wore sweaters, there was a CD tunnel and we even had a cocktail sitting inside a gondola, inside a bar called the Ruin Bar. David drove back down from LA and surfed again with Mike, the waves were tough but the sunset was gorgeous.
When we first arrived in Huntington Beach, I went for a long run, released a bunch of endorphins and came back happier than can be. I convinced Mike that we had to stay longer than three nights, so we immediately extended our stay. Sunday was supposed to be spent watching football at Rob and Ngoc’s house, but we were afraid Berk wouldn’t have a place to go to the bathroom and at this point were seriously worried this illness wasn’t something that had an end in sight. Now he wasn’t eating at all and would even throw up after drinking water. Luckily the only animal hospital in Huntington Beach and the surrounding area that was open on Sunday afternoon happened to be less than half a mile from our place. We took Berk to the vet and found out he had pancreatitis, which is essentially an inflamed pancreas that typically comes from eating something very high in fat or out of the ordinary, like human food. We explained to the doctor what we knew and what his condition was like over the past couple days. They gave Berk an IV, medicine and a cone and told us we needed to have him back there at 7:30am, due to the fact that they weren’t a 24hr care facility. It was so sad seeing him so sick.
We dropped Berk back off at the vet in the morning and treated ourselves to acai bowls before spending a few hours at the beach. At this point, we’d extended our stay in HB one additional night on top of the two we added previously, because Berk was in the hospital and we couldn’t leave until he was 100% better. Mike spent the day surfing again, while I did a beach workout, both trying to get our minds off the stolen bikes and inevitable vet bills. (Also, because it was 85 degrees in November and we were staying right across the street from the beach). Since we missed football Sunday, we planned to meet Rob and Ngoc for dinner at a mexican restaurant in Costa Mesa. We sat at the taco bar, where they cooked our meals right in front of us. The quesadilla I had was incredible, but I’m not sure if it was as incredible as the Mexican street corn with aioli sauce. The food in California has been amazing everywhere. Just Costa Mesa alone had more restaurant options than all of Broome County. Also, donut shops.. There’s donut shops on every street corner. We picked Berkley back up after dinner and received the happy news that he had finally eaten and gone to the bathroom successfully. We paid the steep vet bill and were sent home with pills and were told to feed him only chicken and rice for a week.
Tuesday morning Berk finally started to act like himself again, so we knew we could finally get out of Huntington Beach. It wasn’t that we didn’t love it there and and that we didn’t enjoy spending time with our friends, we were just ready to put the stolen bikes, sick dog and negative energy behind us. HB is definitely a place we’ll never forget. Ever.
Travel the Fernweh 