The best part of the best drive in the world

(Photo: Alex Law)

At Pico, turn left and behold my favorite hotel in the entire universe -- Shutters on the Beach. Park again and go into the lobby and try to get a seat on the outside deck looking over the ocean and the Santa Monica Pier. Heaven with a swizzle stick.

Now begins my favorite part of the most entertaining and exciting drive in the world, when the PCH takes a hard left to the water where I-10 finishes its cross-country journey from Jacksonville by way of Mobile, Baton Rouge, Houston, El Paso, Tucson, Phoenix and Palm Springs.

At this moment you could be nowhere else in the world, with the pier and the ocean on your left, the cliffs of Santa Monica looming on your right, and maniacs in fabulous cars and 30-year-old pickups headed for whatever turns them on.

(Photo: Alex Law)

At first the crowded surroundings and the soul-shifting experience of the beauty make you want to go slow, but the locals soon dissuade you from that. There are lights and lots of houses and businesses along this stretch of the PCH, but the rules of engagement are that you go as fast as the traffic will allow, and weaving is required, not suggested.

Which means you are racing along a road whose beach names evoke Frankie and Annette ("Dude, it's Point Dume"), whose surfaces have been covered many times by mudslides, whose curbs are regularly lined by film crews shooting a film or TV show, and whose houses hide faces you would recognize if they showed themselves.

This is Malibu, which is maybe the most desirable location in the world for the most people in the world (especially those who don't speak French and wouldn't live on the Riviera), and you are speeding through it like a lunatic. For the most part it is straight and wide and true, and bereft of a police presence. Consider that some fool crashed a Ferrari Enzo the other night when the bottom of the car touched the top of the road at more than 250 kmh and it veered into a roadside poll.

If you slow down and look at the houses and the seaviews along the north-western end of Malibu you can appreciate why so many people want to be rich enough to live here in gated communities with ocean access that they'll starve themselves, encourage stalkers, appear on

(Photo: Alex Law)

entertainment shows, talk to Joan Rivers on the red carpet and do all those other soul-sucking things.

Then the mountains of Point Mugu State Park push up against the water and the houses disappear, and the PCH turns into a few miles of wilderness and wonder. You can't believe you're that close to Los Angeles and its traffic, or its citizens.

When you base the military shooting range on the ocean side, you are about to leave the LA orbit and enter into another world entirely -- Oxnard, which is home to several military installations, and the entry point to Ventura and then Santa Barbara.

A good place to decompress and consider the wonder that is the U.S. military-industrial complex is the Point Mugu Naval Air Station Missile Park, right at the end of the best stretch of the best drive in the world.

Later, dudes.
photo:Alex Law