Cali Trip Day One: Silver Creek Beach and lounging in San Clemente

When my uncle called my mom about 6 weeks ago and told her that he'd like to fly Laine, me and her out to his place in San Clemente I thought I was dreaming. For years I've wanted to live in California, but it just never worked out. I couldn't believe that I was finally going to visit the place I've longed to live in for years! He told us that he wanted us to come out on a Thursday and stay until Monday, so on Thursday morning we got up early and headed to the airport anxiously awaiting our trip to paradise. After the 2 1/2 hour flight, we arrived in Orange County at John Wayne airport. My uncle was waiting for us at the baggage claim and once we had our things we packed in the car and started our amazing trip. The first stop was to Silver Creek beach near Newport. We parked in a parking lot across from the beach and rode a bus down closer to the beach. He took us to a wonderful little restaurant on the beach called Beachcomber. The wait was about 45 minutes (we'd soon find out that every place in CA had about that long of a wait no matter the time of day or night) so we walked along the beach and took in the beauty. Laine wasn't a fan of of the kelp so unfortunately we had to take turns carrying her down the beach. We stopped at this little rocky area that had water crashing up on them and creating little pools of crystal clear water. We took a few pictures and then went and ate. The food was amazing and the views were even better. The only bad thing was the weather wasn't quite what we were hoping for. They're apparently caught in some heat wave and the highs were in the mid 80's instead of the low 70's, but it was still cool to us. Once we were through eating, we drove down the PCH towards San Clemente. We got checked in the hotel, changed in to our suites and went to the beach. We had a beach front condo, so all we had to do was walk downstairs, across the street and out to the beach. It wasn't a bad setup! We lounged at the beach for a bit and then came back upstairs to change and go to dinner. He took us to a local mexican food place and then we walked out on the pier and watched the surfers. They amazed us because most of the time they'd sit on their boards and just "wait" for the perfect wave. I swear that during an hour or so a surfer MIGHT catch one or two waves. It seems like a waste of time to me, but clearly it's a very popular sport in Cali. We went back to the room, sat on the balcony for a bit and then went to bed since we were getting up super early for our San Diego, Coronado Island and La Jolla day on Friday! Stay tuned for day two!