Our love affair with the beach

It's officially summer and many Californians will renew their love affair with the beach. For many Tehachapians that would mean a ride down Highway 46 ending up at Pismo. I'm an L.A. kid at heart (I thought a horse was something that had a pole in the middle and went around in a circle until I moved here) so for me the beach means a trip down the 405 to Santa Monica and beyond.

It's funny how our mode of transportation to the beach changed as we got older. When we were 14, two of us used to ride our bikes almost every day from North Hollywood over either Laurel, Coldwater Canyons or the Sepulveda grade. We didn't have driver's license's so Eli at the Surf Shop in Santa Monica gave us the nickname of the "Bicycle Boys" and let us rent surfboards in exchange for holding our bikes as collateral.

We soon discovered hitchhiking the 26 plus miles was quicker, so we decided to use our thumbs instead of our legs. We had some interesting experiences hitchhiking in L.A. in the 60s. One day a young man in a suit picked us up, he started crying, his dad had lost his business in the Watt's riots earlier that day.

One of us got our license and a whole new world opened up. Now we weren't restricted to just one beach, and we headed further and further down the coast. College, military and raising a family changed my relationship with the beach and my visits became less and less frequent. But then something else happened.

I started picking up my old love bike riding and now riding at the beach became a monthly event, first with my kids and then with an old friend of mine who lives on the other end of the urban sprawl know as Greater L.A. We've been riding over 30 years and have no plans to stop now.

Laurie and I now visit the beach frequently. We normally will go to the Festival in Hermosa Beach on Memorial Day and Labor Day. We see many of the same vendors that visit at our Mountain Festival. Whether you like Gladstone's for fish in Malibu or Splash Café in Pismo, the beach has a lot to offer. Don't forget to renew your and your family's love affair with our beaches this summer.

Marty Pay has been a local Farmers Agent for over 30 years! His office and staff are at 212 W. F St. and his office phone number is (661) 822-3737.