Ripper

Rancho Palos Verdes

Friday, August 4, 2006

We've been enjoying each others company exclusively, but we were really looking forward to this evening as we were going to visit Thea's college friend Doug Van Riper (aka Ripper) and his lovely wife Jan and two adorable daughters Michelle and Heather. They live in Rancho Palos Verdes (known to locals as PV) which is is a quiet, affluent suburb of Los Angeles about an hour north of Newport Beach. Sitting atop the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, PV is well known for its spectacular views of the Pacific and Catalina Island, but its most notorious geographic feature is the continuous landslide at Portuguese Bend. Houses literally are built on wheels to go with the flow.

When Doug said we were going to the Beach Club for dinner, we had no idea how spectacular it would be. The "club" is simply one of the most pristine stretches of beach we have ever seen and there isn't any club house- just fire pits, picnic tables, and palapas (palm-thatched umbrellas and our new word for the day!). In California, hardly any shoreline is allowed to be privatized (which makes owners of the million dollar homes in places like Malibu particularly irate), but this little stretch is in fact private and with only 100+ members it's even more exclusive. Jan and the girls had the routine down perfectly...within minutes cotton tablecloths, non-breakable wine glasses, napkins, salad fixings and sushi appeared. Doug had the fire pit stoked to cook the chicken and the bottle of wine was uncorked this is also one of the only places you can drink on the beach:-). As we watched the massive orange sun set on the ocean and then later the moonbeams dancing on the waves, we felt like we could have been in Greece or the Turks & Caicos. It was totally awesome. The perfect finish to the evening was roasting S'mores on the glowing embers.

We also learned about two other landmarks of Rancho Palos Verdes-the Trump National Golf Course at Ocean Trails a somewhat ill-starred golf development at first (the course made national news when the three holes slid into the ocean in 1999) but in January 2006, it opened with 18 holes and a name change after Donald Trump invested millions building up the property and unfortunately gilding everything he touched. The locals are surprised he didn't gold leaf the greens.

Another landmark, the Point Vicente Lighthouse, built in 1926, is famous for ghost stories told of a mysterious woman in white who supposedly committed suicide while waiting for her husband to return from an ocean voyage, and who still keeps her ghostly vigil to this day.

Full Disclosure: This photo of Doug, Michelle and Heather was taken last year when my Mum and I visited them at their house, but I forgot to bring my camera to the beach this time. The only difference is that Doug no longer has a mustache, after some 25 years!