Venice Beach - Summer Vacation 2016

The time difference doesn't seem to have affected us much other than discovering people are in bed when we are sitting down to eat. Time seems to be abstract here. I never know what time it is and was surprised last night to discover we were sitting down to dinner at 9:40 pm. Everyone chalks it up to vacation when I make a comment. Perhaps this is true.

Darcy is in charge of this leg; Los Angeles. She chose to visit the beach on Day 2 and came downstairs in her bathing suit and one of her new cute dresses she purchased for the trip. She is living a dream. Clint stayed behind to install lighting outside around their back porch, but Rick played chaperone and set off at dangerous speeds, weaving in and out of lanes, down the Los Angeles freeway toward Venice Beach.

I had been there on my last trip to California eighteen years ago, and remembered it quite well. But then as I walked along the strip, I realized that it has been featured in so many television shows and movies that maybe my memory wasn't really my own. The day was hot one, but it wasn't humid, and I thought it perfectly beautiful. We had to drive around quite a bit to find a place to park and ended up parking in front of three houses that were for sale. Because Clint is now in the real estate business, we decided we would check it out for him and joined the open house. The house, or condo as we would label it in Florida, was narrow with three stories, an elevator, three bedrooms, and four bathrooms. It was all done in a sleek, modern decor, and I liked it. We chatted up the realtor, took the paperwork as if we were truly interested in the 2.6 million dollar dwelling, and hiked to the beach. It was a mile. My Apple Watch was very proud of me.

About halfway into the hike, we decided that we could really relate to these citizens. Darcy especially was happy to see "some sanity".

We walked the bike path, which separates the beach and boardwalk, much to the annoyance of the bikers. We veered off at an area that had flags from all of the countries stuck in the sand, flapping in the breeze coming off of the Pacific Ocean. It was colorful and cheerful, and while we hadn't an idea at that time what it was all about, it carried us on the walk toward the water. In Florida, parking areas are almost butt up to the beach. In Venice Beach not so. The expanse of brown, grainy sand that we had to walk across made me think I was in the desert searching desperately for water. There is nothing worse than walking in sand, but the first view of the water made it all worthwhile.

We sat while Darcy swam. I found the water to be prettier than our Gulf of Mexico. It was blues and greens versus browns and grays, waves versus no waves unless a hurricane like storm is or has been blowing through, and breezes versus hot, humid stagnancy. I enjoyed sitting, people watching, and taking photos. The temperature of the ocean was 64 degrees, but Darcy swam. She said the current was stronger than home and pulled differently, but she was out there living her dream.

From there we walked the boardwalk. For me, it was a combination of tacky, Florida shopping strips and tacky, touristy, New Orleans'. There were the usual street performers, fire eaters, and musicians. We watched a basketball game on a beach side court, and observed tourists getting henna tattoos and their portraits turned into caricatures. The strip was dirty with tons of trash littering the area and there was a tattoo parlor on every corner and one in between. It was colorful with all of the different types of people dressed in all sorts of different attire. We could have had our picture taken with a yellow snake wrapped around our necks or with a miniature horse who strolled along beside us as if this were an average occurrence.

The shops had the same types of tourist trap objects that everyone has purchased at least once in their lives. There were shirts, and key chains, and shot glasses, and coffee cups. There were sweatshirts, and dresses, and taffy, and globes with falling sand. We paid for frozen lemonades and ice cream. We talked to the gentleman at the flag area on our way back. He was from Dublin and working hard at trying to spread peace through beach drum circles throughout the world. We took his card. Peace is good.

We drove the coastline on our return back to Rolling Hills through Manhattan Beach with its quaint town and steep roads leading down, down, down to the ocean and Redondo Beach with its exquisite views of the coast and its homes on the sides of the hills. By the time we returned to the house, the temperature had dropped its usual ten degrees and the winds had picked up, and we retreated to the back deck overlooking the towns with our nightly drinks and appetizers to discuss the next day's adventures.