THE DAY WE MET DUMBLEDORE

DAY 20: Newport Beach, Orange County

Luckily it was too cold to surf today, but Jen and I thought our bodies deserved some more strenuous exercise than the walking we'd done so far, so we opted for a run along the beach. Turns out running on sand barefoot is not as easy or as nice as it sounds.

Having run as far as we wanted we stopped at Newport Pier to watch the surfers, and then as we started to walk back Jen noticed some fins in the water!!! It was a small pod of dolphins about 100ft off the shore (not the Great White, phew!). What a lovely sight.

After showering and a bit of breakfast we headed to the Fashion Island outdoor mall, a sort of small village of shops, cafes and restaurants. The first shop we went in was a pet shop selling puppies and kittens. Whilst we don't really agree with these sort of places it was hard not to be blown away with the cuteness of the puppies, from sausage dogs and Lhasa Apso/Maltese cross breeds (you have to Google Latese puppies - they literally look like a teddy bear) to British Bulldogs and Bloodhounds - all puppies. If we'd been in the UK we'd definitely have walked home with one.

We then caught up with emails, blogs and Facebook at Starbucks over a vanilla latte - a near daily event.

It was then time to do a bit of dreaming as we drove around the Pelican Hills area (where the Cohen's residence was on The OC). Some simply amazing homes here, I'd be happy with just their pool house.

After a sit down on the cliff at Corona Beach, sunshine now in full beam, we headed back. With tomorrow being our last day in the US we had to get some washing done (boo!) so it was off down the coin laundry. It looked exactly the same as the one in that old Levi's ad. I kept my trousers on though on account of the customers were a little grubby looking and all men! I decided to sit in the car and wait for the laundry.

The evening saw us take in Huntington Beach (Surf City) and enjoy a lovely meal at Sparks overlooking the beach.