We ended our San Diego stay, a petite week, by one more festive visit to Dog Beach before heading up the coast. Sure enough, exiting the accursed I-5 to the Pacific Coast Highway, we saw signs to Doheny Park and Laguna Beach, and the Beach Boys started belting out “Surfin’ Safari.” I did not plan it, honest, my playlist did it on its own. I kept the volume a tad down for fear of being considered uncool by California standards, but beefed it back up when I saw a restored woody with a rehabbed surfer at the wheel headed back down PCH to Doheny. What are North Carolina license plates in Orange County, Calif. worth if you can’t play your tourist music as loud as you want, hmm? Anyway, I put some 20-year-old ghosts to rest in Laguna, then got caught in Pageant of the Masters traffic, thence sucked up toward L.A. before deciding to barrel east on the 10, to the welcoming hospitality of John Gilmore, M.D. ’69 & Cie in Palm Springs.
John Gilmore, M.D., Davidson ’69, and Dodger’s new best friend Antonio pose with the ripe grapes at ACE, me everso charmingly retro Palm Springs home.