A Hike in the Topanga Canyon and two good meals

During our weekend in Santa Monica the weather was warm and sunny but not hot, the perfect weather for doing things.  I find when the temperature starts getting over 25 I really do not feel like doing anything other than sitting around, so with a high of 22 it was time to go hiking.

The Topanga state park is within the city limits of Los Angeles and it is amazing how away from it all you can get with in a city of just under 4 million.

The entrance to the canyon was a 15 minute drive from where we were staying, so we headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway for a couple of miles then turned inland at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and drove up to a parking lot Trippet Ranch and headed up to Eagle Rock.

A view of Eagle rock

It was a beautiful walk along a well groomed trails.

With out much shade this would have been a hot dry trail in the summer, but on this day it was perfect.  We made it up to Eagle Rock, where the views were magnificent, back to the Pacific Ocean and in the other direction over the San Fernando Valley.

We walked down going a different route that my husband assured me was a shorter way, this turned out to be not exactly true, but with the promise of a nice lunch I soldiered on.

Patricks Road House Santa Monica

My husband and I met in Santa Monica for a long weekend at the end of his trip to California and Arizona with our son.   We have been to Los Angeles many times, so we did not feel the need to go to any of the Los Angeles Icons. We rented a VRBO in the Santa Monica Canyon 1 block from the beach and the idea was to relax, bike, hike and of course eat. Unfortunately the first morning was spent with a frustrating trip to the Canadian Consulate and visa centre, due to some expired papers.  This was a fruitless exercise and ended with me having to book a different flight home.  This done we walked the block from our accommodation to Patricks Road house a Santa Monica Icon across the road from the beach

The first thing in order was a drink, but sadly they are BYOB only and even though the waitress helpfully pointed out that there was a liquor store across the road, we stuck to water and coffee. The speciality of the house are fresh made chips (crisps) with truffle oil and Parmesan cheese served with guacamole. I decided homemade truffle chips sounded decadent enough to wipe out the lost morning that I would never get back.

These were large fresh and truly delicious as was the guacamole.

We did not want to ruin our lunch so we ate half of these and took the remainder back and ate them with a steak and grilled asparagus we barbecued on our deck for dinner the next night.