June Gloom and Drive-In Theaters

Before we moved out here, I had visions of the beach life. I thought Malibu, affectionately referred to as "the 'bu" by locals, was going to be this quaint little beach town with boutiques all along the shore. I imagined parking with ease, walking on a wooden boardwalk, and spending days lounging on the sand, maybe stopping at a cute concession stand for a lemonade on occasion.

I don't know where I got this picture of a beach town. Maybe books painted it really well in my mind. Previously, I'd been to Martha's Vineyard, but I don't remember what that looks like, Virginia Beach, St. Thomas, and San Diego. Though all of these are fun places, none of them fit my expectations of Malibu (or Santa Monica or Venice)...

The drive to Malibu is amazing. The kind of beauty that a photograph can't capture, though I've tried.

The Pacific Ocean is, of course, gorgeous. It's an ocean. How do you describe the mystic beauty of an ocean without getting all cheesey and poetic?

But Malibu... The Pacific Coast Highway (PCH, if you're cool) runs all along the shore, so my visions of a quiet shore lined with boutiques were shattered. Cars park all along the highway to avoid paying the parking fees of the parking lots, so parking with ease and taking a leisurely stroll to the beach doesn't happen until winter. Neither does finding a nice little space to call your own. Although Santa Monica is more touristy and Venice is known for its zany antics, Malibu is packed. As soon as we think we've found the perfect, quiet spot to settle down, I'll roll out my towel, lay back, close my eyes for a while and when I open them, a family of five will be blinking back expectantly at me.

And this during June Gloom. 

Apparently, this time of year, clouds hover over the beaches all day and the sun doesn't peek out until early afternoon. I don't really mind this, because, this is weird to admit, but I miss rain. I miss weather. Eighty to one hundred-and-something and sunny everyday with no chance of rain or thunderstorms or wind or pixie dust or something gets old. After spending the entire school year locked up in my apartment or the library studying, I spent two weekends outside and people couldn't believe how dark my skin is.

It turns out I'm part Indian.

Anyway, this "June Gloom" in the beach towns, opposed to all sun, all the time in the valley is allegedly keeping beach-goers away until July, when we will all go to the beach– Malibu, Hermosa, Redondo, all of them– and spoon. Allegedly keeping them away.

Spoon with strangers is basically what we did last weekend. We headed to Malibu, I got settled in with my book and Kevin fell asleep. When he woke up, there was a huge, 5 feet deep hole at his feet. Teenagers were taking turns burying themselves in it while their mom sang, "Smiiiile!! Smiiiile!" at them as she took their pictures when they were neck-deep in the sand. 

I was in the mood for some old-timey fun after spending my day listening in on the details of these kids' lives, so we looked up a drive-in movie theater and found one that has not one, but four movie screens an hour and a half away. If you want, you can watch three different movies at three different screens. 

It's pretty cool. 

We packed up the puppy, loaded up on snacks from the 99 Cents store and headed out. Seriously, we loaded up on snacks. I had meant for us to buy maybe three different healthy items. Instead, we bought the three bags of dried fruits, then added boxes of candy, a bag of chips, and some chocolate. It was pretty ridiculous. Movies do that to us. It's like we were afraid we'd starve while we waited for the sun to set for the movie to begin.

We saw The Internship, which I thought was very hilarrrrious, and Now You See Me, which I thought was very dumb. But The Internship and the fact that two movies only cost $9 made up for one bad movie.

So THAT was one summer weekend in Southern California.