With 100 degree temperatures in the SFV, I fled for an hour on the coast to see if I could gather some cool air. I really was expecting only to drive up or down the PCH for a few exits with the window down. There was ZERO traffic and I got to SM in 18 minutes (!) and sure enough, I could see the beaches were, mercifully, closed. The piers are closed; even the Santa Monica bluffside parking was closed. But I noticed the Palisades Park itself, was miraculously open. It looked quite empty except for a few joggers and masked locals on blankets, adhering to the social distancing placards everywhere.

If I could be lucky enough to find ordinary street parking…a parking space opened up in front of my eyes. Huzzah! For 35 minutes I got to stroll along almost my own private seafront esplanade, drinking in the sun and salt spray, and envying the life of the native cliff asters.

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They were squatting there like a hippie commune, impudent, defiant, a little unkempt actually, blown in among Abbot Kinney’s famously elegant exotic ornamentals. It all made a merry sight for my Valley-sore eyes.

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