Trump's Way

Day 3
Location: Trump's Golf Course, Rancho Palos Verdes
Entertainment Cost: Free

Food Cost: Free if you have awesome friends by the name of Lisa and Gus. (Thanks for the chips, granola bars, drinks, and, of course, the PHO!!)

For those that can't afford $300 dollar tee off at Trump Golf, an alternative way to enjoy the prestigious ocean view of the Pacific Palisades is to walk alongside the lush greens and peachy sand dunes coating its trails. Although a 12 mile course round trip, there is a shorter route you can sneak off to that leads you down a crooked dirt path to the tide pools of the Pacific coast. There is where you will find the many sea creatures such as purple shelled crabs with pink tinged corners hiding behind sea green and almond brown coral, starfish, sea anemones, shelled crabs crawling furtively between nooks in communities where both sea life and plant life coexist in the biorhythm we call mother nature.

Not many Californians can say that they enjoy their commute. I know I certainly begrudge the idea of driving--especially when we are conditioned to sit through traffic on our way to work or to pick up some groceries by way of many stoplights, turtle drivers, and overcrowded roads. However, driving the five mile winding hillside that looms over the coastline, its fresh breeze, open road, and crystal clear oceanside view felt more like a cruise. Now I understand the essence of the word, "cruise", simultaneously reliving the term "joyride" from back when we were still teens, when we were still eager to find any excuse to be behind the wheel. On our left side, we saw the infinite ripples of the ocean, only smoothed out by the silver lining that separates the optic departure between water from sky. The nuance of that lining is so slight that to the untrained eye, one might even believe we are on a rock floating above the sky. To a fanciful imagination, we could well be living in James Cameron's Avatar world.

Two seconds into the trail, we (Josh, Kathy, Cynthia, David, Gus, Lisa, and I) all noticed how smooth and wide the pavement is. It felt like trails for the rich--well quite literally considering that the mega mansions behind us are most likely the routine joggers. Next, I noticed how diverse the native plants flourished. Now I'm definitely not a biologist, botanist, ecologist, and anything of the nature (get my pun? HA!), but just from a cursory glance, one can notice the color scheme layered artfully against the backdrop of the cliff and PV mansions.

By the time we crossed the wooden bridge that connects the botany with the beginning of the descending dirt path towards the shore, we were all caught by the breathtaking view of the kelp scattered throughout the beige, pale blue, and algae green colors of the waters. I could distinctly smell the salt and seaweed of the Pacific Ocean bidding to us to come closer. By the time we were at the bottom, there was a community of creatures galore in every step we took on the coral reefs and tide pools. If we had a bucket, we would've all had crabs for dinner tonight for it was plentiful. A couple of our guys easily picked it up by the torso and back shell while the other sea anemones and starfish creatures we found were protected by the fickle tides that teased us with sporadic moments of high and low.

 

 

Like many SoCo natives, when it comes to exercising, we often gain more than lose do to our ability to eat more calories than we burn on a particular event. In any case, by the time we headed back, we all sweating, hungry, but most of all feeling wholesome. Pho at Saigon Bistro was a perfect way to celebrate a  "Trump" victory to another nice, fulfilling day.