Balboa Peninsula and Newport Beach

Friday, February 21st

Another glorious sunny day, no fog today. We are having a down day today ... possibly. lol I will see how the morning goes with cleaning tasks and laundry. Ray went over after breakfast for a hot tub while I was doing the laundry. He is pretty sore today after our tour yesterday which involved quite a bit of walking for his pictures.

Here is the view of our campsite with our grassy front yard.

Well, we decided at 11 am to head into town and visit the seafood market for some fresh dungeness crab for dinner. They had the most amazing selection. After picking them up and some swordfish and some yellowfin tuna for Ray, it was off to explore the actual Newport Beach area.

At the end of the Balboa Pier was a little dinner called Ruby's which is actually a chain dinner we have seen in quite a few places here on the coast ... we took a pass. There were quite a few fisherman on the pier catching what looked like small mackerel.

Balboa Beach

Balboa Island

Balboa Pier

Newport Beach with Newport Pier in the distance

We walked from the pier down the road to the other side of the peninsula, only a couple of blocks to the restaurant.

Our lunch destination.

They have a Fun Zone for kids here with a few different rides of them.

Lots of tour boats, rental boats, and Whale Watching Tours leave from here.

There are these car ferries that go back and forth with 3 cars to the mainland for $2 for car and driver. I guess this helps with traffic in the summer, otherwise it seems a bit of a time waster.

After walking around and Ray taking pictures, we decided to go to the Harbourside Restaurant and Grand Ballroom. In the bar they had happy hour with a lot cheaper fish dishes than the restaurant so of course we went there. lol They had a view of the water but no patio unfortunately.

After lunch .... margarita's, fresh oysters, lobster bisque, tempura calamari and a mahi mahi fish taco, we waddled back to the car in another seafood food coma back to the campsite. Of course we will still have the 2 dungeness crab for dinner. lol

Driving out we stopped at one more spot for Ray to take some pictures of the boats in the canal. This canal joins up with our bay in front of us.

Once back and Freya walked with and played with, we sat outside until it clouded over and became much cooler and decided to go for a hot tub. Felt awesome. This is one of the best hot tubs we have used while travelling. Hot and hard jets. They actually have 3 hot tubs but this is the only one we tried.

Later in the day it did rain a bit. No problem for us, but for a couple of our neighbours each rented a firepit for a fire with friends and ended up hiding in their units with all the kids instead. So a quiet Saturday night. Ray and I enjoyed our wonderful dungeness crab dinner.

Received some fabulous news this morning from Garrett and Kat.

The happy parents to be.

Our first grandchild, a girl, is due mid-June. Hurray. Congratulations to you guys. I am so excited for you both. Can't wait to meet her.

While checking our security cameras at home today, our gardener and had a team in to cleanup debris from our beach. Yeah. It will all be done before we get home.

Saturday, Feb 22nd

A very cloudy morning and quite cool out. In the weather forecast for today is possible thunder showers this afternoon ... Freya won't like that. lol When we set up the coach we did not take into consideration there is one basement compartment that we cannot open due to the proximity to the power post ... Of course this is the one with the booze and dog supplies. So we will have to open the drawer on the driver's side, slide it out as far as we can and crawl in to get what we need. lol

Today is a stay at home day other than going out for lunch. A sushi place is what I have in mind. Also a little grocery shopping on the way for a couple of things. Easy to do when everything is nearby. Had a couple of good rain showers but by 11:30am the sun was back out for awhile.

Lunch was at Cafe Sakana. Their sushi is delicious and very fresh. Loved it. It is a very small venue with an outside patio as well. No sushi bar to watch food being prepared though. (Pictures from Google)



Ray's lunch:





My lunch:





We also shared two unagi pieces and an order of tempura prawns and veggies. A fabulous lunch. Back to the coach (waddling like ducks once again) and the rest of the afternoon spent outside enjoying the day. We chatted with our neighbours and I practiced being a grandma with their 9 month old baby boy. lol

Only 2 more days here and we hit the road again.