After living in Huntington Beach for the past few months I've definitely noticed some pretty big differences between San Diego and the OC.

One of the biggest differences was made apparent to me last night.

I wanted to go on a walk, and rather than doing a mile of residential walking to the beach and a mile of residential walking back, I decided to drive down to the beach for a full beach walk. As I was driving down coast highway I couldn't help but notice that not one inch of parking on the coast was free. The entire coast was sprinkled with parking meters - all of Coast Highway has meters, the lots all have meters or pay booths, and all of downtown has meters. If you think I'm lying check out this map.

What kinda crap is that? I can't help but wonder why they make people pay to park at the beach. Is it to make money off of the tourists? If so, they're not exactly giving the locals a break. Is it to encourage people to leave the beach after their 3 hour time limit? If so, that doesn't make sense at all.

I could be wrong, but don't remember one part of San Diego that makes you pay to park at the beach. All of PB's street parking was free. The lots in O-side were free. La Jolla street parking was free . . .

I dunno. Seems kinda lame to make people scrounge a couple bucks of loose change to see the sun set or take a dip in the ocean.

- Side Rant -
The first 3 blocks off the coast in Huntington are "Residential Parking - Parking by Permit Only". When I lived a couple blocks away from the ocean in PB, I don't remember being given a permit that guaranteed me street parking. And street parking down there wasn't always pretty either, especially during the summer on the weekends, letmetellyou. But I never had to walk more than a few blocks and I understood that part of living near the beach is dealing with beach traffic. I think it's lame that the snobby beach front property owners bitched enough about the parking to get the city to block off these streets for their use only.

(Something tells me if they took away the parking meters these OC residents wouldn't have to cry so much about people taking their parking spots.)