Editor’s note: This is part 4 of Tarmo Hannula’s recent trip to Los Angeles
Packing up and heading south on day five of our road trip to southern California, my wife Sarah and I rolled through a number of towns and cities on our way to Carlsbad.
On our way out of Los Angeles we stopped for lunch at Little Saigon in Orange County about 45 miles south of downtown LA. It’s the largest Vietnamese enclave outside of Vietnam. One shopping center after another featured stores and restaurants with tons of Vietnamese goods and food.
We made a brief stop in south LA to view an outdoor sculpture park called Sister Dreamer that Sarah had read about. The massive sculptures and towering pillars echo Egyptian monuments and were created by artist Lauren Halsey who was born in the area. Halsey said the monuments are dedicated to the people in the neighborhood to “honor local heroes, neighbors and family.”
In Huntington Beach we discovered a great birding spot, the Bocha Chica National Reserve along Highway 1. The kind woman at the Nature Center, Jess, told us about a spot where a group of least terns were nesting and laying eggs. On our way there we spotted a giant sea turtle treading the shallow waters of a lagoon. Then we saw a yellow-crowned night heron, a first for both of us. Black skimmers and great white herons also dotted the water’s edge. There were about a dozen least terns sitting on their nests on the shoreline in a protected area.
As with many of our road trips, we next aimed for the 1776 California Mission at San Juan Capistrano. According to their website it is “known as the ‘Jewel of the Missions.’” The site features a museum with permanent exhibits with original artifacts as well as traveling and temporary exhibits. The site was founded on Nov. 1, 1776, by Junípero Serra as the seventh of 21 California missions established by Spain.
In the next part of this series we settle in at the Great Western Hotel right on the rocky shore of Carlsbad, our furthest point south, to visit family and continue exploring.
