California Adventure 2018 - Part 6

Day 7

One of my favorite tools for planning any trip is atlasobscura.com. You can look up odd, interesting, or unique attractions in each state and even other countries. We saw plenty of roadside attractions on this trip but my favorite is probably the Sunken City.

Here's a description from wikipedia:

"In 1929 a natural landslide caused several beachside homes in the Pt. Fermin area of San Pedro, CA, to slide into the ocean. The site was dubbed “Sunken City”. The development of cliffside homes and exclusive bungalows was established in the 1920s by George Peck to attract people who wanted to live with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. Experts investigating the landslide said that the ground was shifting at a rate of 11 inches per day. The landslide occurred at the southern tip of San Pedro sending nearly 40,000 square feet of land into the Pacific Ocean.

The first reports of damage occurred on January 2, 1929, a waterline broke underneath the Ocean View Inn hotel on Paseo Del Mar, and a few days later a gas line broke under the same building. Most of the houses on the 600 block of Paseo Del Mar were evacuated and relocated before the collapse. There was not enough time to move two houses, which ultimately slid into the ocean. Part of the adjoining Point Fermin Park also fell. The slide displaced houses, commercial buildings, streets, and sidewalks."

So I did a bit of research on it and hoped Samantha would be willing to go along with it. I talked it up for a few days before we went and it was only the morning of that I told her that it was actually not open to the public and we would have to trespass to reach it. She wasn't too keen on it initially. But we set out anyway. It was a Wednesday morning so the park next to it was pretty deserted. 

The fence we needed to get past went down the side of the cliff a short ways before it ended and a careful descent was needed. We may have even ducked under a dug out place under the fence instead of going around the end. 

As you can see from the well-worn path down to the end of the fence, it's a pretty popular place.

After we got past the fence, it was just a large open field, a neighborhood complex on one side, the cliff and ocean on the other. I was hesitant because I wasn't 100% we were even in the right place. But soon we saw the edge of the crater! At first I was content to snap a few pics from the edge, not seeing a clear path down from the side we were on. We decided to walk around the perimeter to get a different view and found we could easily walk the well-worn paths down into the rubble. 

It's obvious graffiti artists are drawn to this place as nearly every inch of it was covered in paint. 

We left the way we came, and didn't encounter anyone. 

If I'm ever back in the area, I would love to see it again.

After that we headed down highway 1, stopping for an In-N-Out Burger before heading to Victoria Beach, where we hoped to find a tower on the beach. 

I admit, in this situation, I was not the wisest and ended up parking on the side of the road, much further south than we had intended. I had the idea we could simply walk the beach until we reached the tower. But I was wrong. 

After a good while of walking, we approached a wall that butted up against the ocean, with large boulders placed up against the wall. At this point, Sammi was done, tired of walking on sand and not reaching our destination but I was adamant that the tower would be just on the other side and we could easily navigate the boulders since they were so large and seemed sturdy.  The problem being was as we traveled across them, sand had washed over parts and had hidden several gaps between them. That in combination with the ocean lapping up over the boulders just a few feet down, made us a little anxious. At times we were able to use the shelf of the wall to aid us. In the end we had made it past and didn't get sucked into the ocean. We even passed a girl going the opposite direction and advised her on the safest route. 

To make matters worse, the tower wasn't on the other side of this stretch of beach. So we continued on.

Samantha, none too happy with my decision.

Finally we reached the right place! They even had a couple people doing a photo shoot there.

We opted to walk back to street level to return to the car rather than risk the boulders being covered by the tide, since we weren't sure. It was a long trek and by the time we returned to the bnb for the night, we were exhausted.