Brendan’s reputation often precedes him.

To know us, is to know we always have a house guest at Thanksgiving. Every November Brendan comes back to his hometown for an annual dose of family and friends, but this time the tables were turned. As we entered the ‘non-family’ portion of our California vacation, Brendan guided us through Newport, Hermosa & Manhattan Beach.

Brendan’s friends, Penn and Wendy have a super sweet guest house on the peninsula in Newport Beach. What a great place to crash.

Now I know why D is always trying to plan trips to visit Brendan. He looks right at home on Penn & Wendy’s patio, doesn’t he?

In the word according to Dorney, when visiting Newport Beach you must  jump on a beach cruiser and ride along the beach. Here he makes fun of my purple bike. Does it actually say Cheetah on there?

The purpose of this bike ride was to visit one of D’s rugby pals who bartends at 21 Oceanfront.

I also need to pause and give a shout out to nearby Seaside Bakery which puts out a pretty awesome jalapeno ham and cheese croissant.

How do we know it’s late afternoon in this California photo? The sun is actually shining!!

Last photo on the right, it’s back to the morning June Gloom.

There’s one more stop on our CA trip, where we’ll be  inching our way closer to LAX and our return flight back to the East Coast. D selected our last hotel room, our 5th accommodations during the 7 day trip. A booking snafu netted us a sweet room in Hermosa Beach. Check back soon for the rest of the story.