Once again my expectations were heavily crushed by reality. Maybe they were just unrealistically set by the media, but overall, I don’t really get the draw to Malibu. And, the real estate prices are unreal. We picked up a Land and Homes mag and had a browse through, and most of the properties were at least $2.0 Million, and a lot were more like $6-8M and up to $105M! Sheesh.
Sure, the ocean is beautiful, and we are perched up high on a cliff overlooking such a view, here in our RV park, but down at sea level it just isn’t that awesome. Sorry. There is a 4 lane highway running through it. The general landscape is brown and unkempt looking; I get that they are in a drought but really, what a shabby looking roadside.
I guess I pictured a nice tree lined boulevard, curbs and maybe a sidewalk (is that too much to ask?), and people who respect there community by putting their dirty trash in the 50 garbage bins that LINE the highway along the beach. Sure, there are some super flashy estate properties here but maybe someone should take responsibility for how the place looks.
Anyway, off on a tangent. We did our beach walk this morning, and I can’t complain about that because we are here enjoying the lovely warm climate and we ARE walking on a beach, which standing on the sand looking out, is gorgeous. Dogs are not allowed on the beach, oops, as we found out after.
Malibu doesn’t have much for shops to wander, which we were surprised to find out, but we did find a couple of surf shops anyway before continuing on to Santa Monica Beach. We parked near the pier and managed to get Rylie into her umbrella stroller. She wasn’t thrilled about it especially once we got up on the Pier and it was like a bumpy railroad tie boardwalk. Oops.
Being a holiday (Veterans Day) it was very crowded and noisy, with rides blaring, greasy food smells in the air; and so much to take in. Nixon was also on high alert (no waves), and was eager to smell and eat any crumb he could drag me too. That was annoying. Then, not 5 minutes after arriving a bird went and crapped on Rylie’s head. Ugh!
That was nearly it for me, but sigh, I took a breath, and we went for a walk down the path a ways along the beach anyway. After all, we paid for parking, we couldn’t go home already. The crowds had dispersed away from the pier, and there were places for kids to play; gym-like structures in the sand. So, we wandered a bit, then let Rylie practice her skills on the playground. She must be part chimpanzee because she can climb like one, but she sure won’t walk!
On the drive home, we passed some nice restaurants, a small park with some grass, and some high end shops in the Santa Monica area, in addition, we noted some crazy big abodes up on the hill with (I’m sure) fantastic views of the ocean. But, overall, as our family will be pleased to know, I just don’t see the attraction to Malibu in general as a place to live. The smaller towns that we’ve passed along our southbound journey had much greater appeal to us; no big city, thank you. We did see 4 or 5 ferrari’s, a few Tesla’s, and one lady “jogging” with huge, but not-real boobs, which I’m pretty sure, makes our visit to Malibu complete.