Headed home from town on Sunday. Hot weather equals heavy traffic here so PCH was slow going. And then we got to the Cove, where things simply stopped. (Yes, the photo was shot through my windshield and yes, I have since washed it.)

Traffic into the Cove has gotten heavier ever since the sleepy Sand Castle restaurant vanished and the amped-up, heavily advertised Paradise Cove Beach Cafe appeared. At first just the Cove road backed up, making getting into the mobile home park or the restaurant a long, slow drive. Now, with crowds too big and parking too scarce, the back-up spills out onto PCH.

Here's a letter to Malibu's Patch site, a good explanation (with photos by Susan Tellem) of what's going on:

Obviously another nightmare day at Paradise Cove - the cars cannot fit into the left turn lane as you can see and they are dangerously blocking part of the left lane going north. Then they are illegally loading up in the double - double crossing the line. People are making left turns into Paradise cove blocking the highway and causing gridlock even though it says FULL on the sign as early as 11 a.m. when I went to church.

The cars coming from the north are backed up because cars are doing turns and then stuck in the middle of the highway. Further, those young men with the safety vests are powerless out in front - they look like deer in the headlights. We need sheriff's out there all day on the weekend and we need to pay for them. This is a dire situation if there is an emergency.

Add in the hundreds of people who park on PCH and fork over $10 to walk into the Cove, many of them carting in alcohol (drunken beach party! yay!) and it's a nightmare. Who's going to step in and fix things? The city? The LA County Sheriffs? The Kissel Company? Anyone at all?

It'll be interesting to see.