California coast trip, Day 3: South Bay bike-riding, Malibu boat-watching, Oxnard hot-tubbing

We’re three days and about 200 miles into a south-to-north assault on California’s coast now. Today was big: bike ride from Hermosa Beach to Manhattan Beach and back; dinner and a boat-watching stroll on the recently revived Malibu Pier; then a day-capping dip in (I hate to brag, but here goes) what I believe to be the largest hot tub in all of Oxnard.

It’s at the Embassy Suites Mandalay Bay Resort, as are we, for the reasonable sum of $184 nightly. (The connecting thread on these lodgings, in case anybody is keeping score at home, is that they all stand right on the waterfront — no road between the hotel and the Pacific. So we didn’t expect anything dirt-cheap. but we also didn’t want to break the bank, which is why we bypassed all those glitzy retreats in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach.) Anyway, here in Oxnard, for $184 we get a partial ocean view and a suite that’s as roomy as it is strangely colored — guacamole-green walls, with bits of blue and orange here and there.

“Teal and salmon,” says Mary Frances, the colorist in our household. (But that doesn’t mean she’s on the designer’s side.)

The big hot tub is about 30 feet long, 3½-feet deep and liver shaped. In the nippy night, the air above it is thick with steam. The travelers in it: happy and helpless as clams in scalding chowder.

— Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Top photo: It doesn't take long for the volleyball courts to fill in Hermosa Beach on a Saturday morning. And since this is more or less the world capital of beach volleyball, the caliber of play is serious.]

Additional Day 3 photos:

From the Hermosa Beach Pier, you get a gull’s eye view of some great surfing. (But if you want a cappuccino or some cotton candy, you’re better off at the shorter, folksier Manhattan Beach Pier a few miles north. It has surfers and a snack bar at its far end.)

In Malibu, even the water comes with that casual yet profoundly prosperous look.

[Photos by Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times]

Related:
Calif. coast trip, Day 1: From Tia Juana River to the Hotel Del
Calif. coast trip, Day 2: Juan Cabrillo, our state’s 1st European tourist

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 10:47 am by Susan Derby and is filed under California, Family & Kids, Hotels, Islands & Beaches, Los Angeles, Ventura. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.