This is a picture of the Pacific Coast Highway, driving from Malibu into Santa Monica. (Photo: K. Anderberg, Jan. 2008)
Leaving Santa Monica, driving onto the Pacific Coast Highway, heading towards Malibu...
Santa Monica is a beach town, to the west of Los Angeles. It has beach access to the Pacific Ocean, with soft sands, and a Mediterranean climate that makes ocean water
nice, not too cold to wade into. Just to the South is the Venice
Boardwalk where you can ride bikes or skate along the waterfront for miles. And to the north is the more exclusive Malibu, with its private beaches and expensive homes.
This is a picture of part of the Santa Monica Mountains Nature Conservancy in Malibu. (Photo: K. Anderberg, Jan. 2008)
A photo of the ocean at Malibu in January...(Photo: K. Anderberg, Jan. 2008)
Check out this live webcam facing west to the Santa Monica Pier! This has especially beautiful pictures at sunset, as it
faces west...there are also webcams looking towards Santa Monica from across the bay at
http://www.livinginthepalisades.com/coastcam/, and at http://www.livinginthepalisades.com/baycam/. The last one has
an overview of Santa Monica...the Santa Monica and Venice beachheads are visible to the upper left in this webcam...the camera is looking down over the region from the cliffs of Pacific Palisades. There is
also an online Venice Boardwalk live webcam.
Santa Monica is an interesting mix of beach bungalows and upscale boutiques. On the summer weekends,
the town is packed with people driving in from the Valley to go to the beaches. The pier is nice for kids, you can have dinner or lunch at the end of the pier, and I swam in the
ocean at Santa Monica regularly as a kid. The 3rd Street Promenade is an open air mall, with street performers and a farmers' market, lined on both sides with stores.
Pacific Palisades
Park is a bluff over the ocean at the west end of Santa Monica. The sunsets from this park are magnificent. Santa Monica has a top rate bus system, and it can often be easier to just bus your way around
Santa Monica and the beach, than trying to deal with parking around the city.
Santa Monica College (http://www.smc.edu/) is a 2 year community college in Santa Monica, CA. Santa Monica is a very small beach town,
just north of Venice, and just south of Malibu, in the Los Angeles area. The SMC campus itself is a nice one. It has mostly low buildings on a nice sunny campus, with the
smell of the ocean wafting throughout. It has a direct transfer
program with several local 4 year colleges such as UCLA, and has a somewhat straightforward application process. Basically all you need to be allowed to attend SMC is to either be 18 or to have a high school diploma or GED,
or have previous college credit. Many SMC students end up living
either in Venice, where rents are a little lower, or from communities near Santa Monica in the hills, such as Laurel and Topanga Canyons, etc.
SMC has a wide variety of class offerings and is located in one of the most beautiful areas on Earth. The performing arts and graphic design programs at this school are recognized as superior.
Seabirds are loud around the area, and
sand coats everything along the first street in from the beaches. The winter storms in this area can be quite intense and frightening. Wildfires also roar down some of these
canyons to the sea, regularly,
as well. Floods also rage down the canyons some years. And yes, this is earthquake country too. Part of what created the beauty here in the Santa Monica
Mountains, the ocean beaches, etc. was geologic activity and it continues to date. Yet even with these natural disasters looming constantly, Santa Monica has very high rents and many of the buildings
have rent control so people never leave. Finding housing can be difficult there.
Santa Monica has a unique character. I have lived there in the past and enjoyed the entreprenurial spirit, the California attitudes towards things, the lifestyle of
outdoor cafes, backyard patio BBQ culture, pools in the backyards at dusk, biking to the beach in shorts and sandals, etc. But I also enjoyed the alternative culture ever present, full of religious gurus and artists,
musicians and a strong green culture, not to mention kick ass live organic juice bars and health food stores...Southern CA has a very unique feel to it, and Santa Monica is one of its jewels.
Leaving Santa Monica, driving onto the Pacific Coast Highway, heading towards Malibu...
Kirsten Anderberg. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint/publish, please contact Kirsten at kirstena@resist.ca.