← Misc · 2022–2026

Irvine and Around

Orange County close to home, mostly on my wife's walks with Wangcai.

Most of the photos in this post are my wife's, from walks with Wangcai near where we live in Orange County. Since Wangcai came home in January 2025, my wife has taken her out to the coast and the trails around Irvine again and again, often just for an hour around sunset. Many of those walks were just the two of them, and I say so below. Where I was there too, I write "we".

None of these were trips. They are the places a short drive away: a state park on the cliffs, a park above the tide pools in Laguna, a harbor, a marsh, a dog beach and a few ridges. Below they are grouped by place rather than by date, from Crystal Cove down the coast to Dana Point, then back up through Newport and Huntington Beach, inland to Irvine's hills, and finally to the lights in December.

Crystal Cove

Crystal Cove State Park, between Newport and Laguna, is the place my wife's photos return to most. The first visit in her library is in November 2023, before Wangcai: an afternoon on the terrace of the Shake Shack above the cove, ending with the sun going down into the ocean at 4:46 pm.

From 2025 on, the visits are walks with Wangcai along the bluff trail above the beach. In May 2025 the trail looked down on a gray-green sea and the sage along the edge; in June she stood at the top of the bluff at dusk, looking down at the waves and the long curve of the beach.

In September 2025 my wife took her back to the Shake Shack terrace for the sunset, and again in May 2026, the summer I spent in the Bay Area. The view from there looks down over the palms and cottage roofs to the sea.

Laguna Beach

Heisler Park is a strip of lawn and palms on the cliffs at the north end of downtown Laguna Beach, with paths down to coves and tide pools. My wife has walked it many times. In July 2025 she sat on the lawn with Wangcai and pointed the camera straight up at the palms.

Two days later we were in Laguna together for the Pageant of the Masters, the summer show in which the cast poses as living re-creations of famous artworks. The only photo here is the stage before the show began.

In September 2025 she was there at sunset, with the palms and the rocks in silhouette against a sky going from blue to orange.

In May 2026 she came by in the late morning, when the water in the coves was clear enough to see the rocks under it.

In January 2026 we went together, with Wangcai, and took a stairway down the cliff to the water.

Further south, the lawn in front of the Montage hotel runs along the top of the bluff. My wife walked Wangcai there at sunset in September 2026.

Dana Point

Dana Point is the far end of these walks. In October 2025 my wife and Wangcai spent the late afternoon in the park above Lantern Bay, until the sun went down behind a line of yellow flowers on the slope. In January 2026 she went up to the overlook on the headlands, which looks down on the long jetty of Dana Point Harbor and the boats inside it.

Newport Beach

The oldest photo here is mine: a single frame of palms against the sunset at Fashion Island, the day before Thanksgiving 2022. In April 2025 I took a few of the West Jetty at the mouth of Newport Harbor, where the path runs along the rocks next to the channel.

A few weeks later, in May 2025, we took Wangcai to the Wedge, the beach at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula, at sunset. She sat on the sand and watched the waves. In June 2026 my wife went back to the peninsula on her own with Wangcai for another sunset, this time near the Balboa Pier.

From Castaways Park, on a bluff above the harbor, the whole of Newport Harbor lies below, with the towers of Newport Center behind it. My wife's photo was taken on a February evening in 2026.

The place she walks Wangcai most in Newport is Upper Newport Bay, the estuary behind the harbor, with dirt paths along its edge. Her photos from there run from a December morning to a July sunset over the marsh.

On an October evening in 2026, Wangcai stood next to a sign marking the path as hiking only: no bikes and no horses.

Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach has Dog Beach, a stretch of sand where dogs can be off leash, with a grassy bluff path above it. My wife took Wangcai there in November 2025. On the sand Wangcai sat and watched the surf.

The most recent photo in this post is from the same coast, two days before I wrote it: by 2:30 that afternoon Wangcai had been buried in the sand up to her neck.

The hills of Irvine

Irvine itself has its own open space: wide dirt trails over the hills on the south side of the city, around Quail Hill and Bommer Canyon. These are my wife's evening walks with Wangcai, and the photos follow the seasons: golden grass in September, green in March, dry again by June.

In June 2026, while I was in the Bay Area, she kept up the evening walks; by then the grass on the ridge had dried to gold again.

Some evenings the sky did more than the trail. On September 21, 2025 the clouds over the hills turned a deep orange a few minutes before seven. A week later, on September 28, we were both out at dusk when a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, far up the coast, and its exhaust trail curved across the sky over a shopping center parking lot.

In February 2026 my wife found a shadier walk: a creek trail in Lake Forest, under trees, along a rocky streambed.

Cook's Corner and Lago Santa Margarita

One Sunday in June 2025 we drove inland instead. Cook's Corner is a roadside bar at the foot of the Santa Ana Mountains where motorcyclists gather, and that afternoon the lot was packed with rows of bikes under the dry hills. An hour later we were at Lago Santa Margarita, the lake in the middle of Rancho Santa Margarita, with geese on the shore and the town's houses around the water.

Lights in December

In December the coast lights up. On December 13, 2025 we spent the day in Laguna. It started at the Sawdust Art Festival's Winter Fantasy and ended at dusk on the Montage lawn, where a tall tree covered in warm white lights stood on the grass and a second one glowed down by the cove.

In Newport the lights are on the water. My wife walked Wangcai along the harbor on December 21, 2025, when the boats were strung with lights. On Christmas night we walked around Balboa Island together, where the decorations go well beyond a string of lights: on one dock stood a gingerbread house outlined in colored bulbs.

The season starts early in Orange County. By October 23, 2026 the giant tree was already up at Irvine Spectrum, and Wangcai sat for a photo in front of it. Two days later the houses near the harbor in Newport were dressed for Halloween instead, with inflatable ghosts and a glowing pumpkin.

Other places near home are already on this site: Irvine's Fourth of July show is in the fireworks post, and UC Irvine is in the campuses post.

Map built from the photos' locations. Photo locations have been removed from the published images. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; each stop is placed where its photo was taken, and where we live is never marked.

Some photos in this post are my wife's.