I fell way behind again. Shoot!
So, to catch up a bit -- while we were in Long Beach we traveled north and visited the famous coastal beaches -- Redondo, Manhattan, Hermosa, Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu, etc.
Whoops! NORWALK??!!! Did we take a wrong turn?
Below, photos of California's super beaches -- which progressed from the sublime to the ridiculous.
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| Views of the beautiful Redondo Beach. Unfortunately, that morning we were still dealing with the stubborn marine layer of clouds -- the "June gloom" of Southern California. |
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| Surfers shooting the pier at Manhattan Beach. |
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| The pier at Manhattan Beach. |
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| The amazing expanse of Santa Monica beach. |
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| The sun finally came out! Here, Beau takes in Santa Monica, with the pier barely visible in the background. |
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| Santa Monica from the other direction. |
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| All I wanna do, is have some fun, till the sun comes up on... |
And now, for the ridiculous -- the craziness that is Venice Beach. Our first glimpse of the famous strand included signs for "Marijuana Evaluation" and a storefront where a "doctor" handed out prescriptions for pot. He wore a white coat with a marijuana leaf on the pocket! The pot hawkers approached me -- and I was tempted. (I told the guy I felt "anxious," and he handed me a card advertising pot prescriptions. Dang! I probably could have gotten an Rx!)
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| A collage of Venice snapshots. |
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I love, love, love this guy! He was dancing with a cellophane flag and a jar of Jif peanut butter on his head.
Hey, makes sense to me. |
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Venice has a number of skateboard rinks, and there were SO many boarders!
This little guy was really talented. Here he is, catching "air" above the rim of the skating track. |
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| Beau showing his muscles at...Muscle Beach in Venice. There were some bodybuilders working out in a fenced in area behind this giant dumbbell-shaped monument to lifting. |
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| Sidewalk cafe along Venice Beach. |
As we continued up the coast, the big disappointment was Malibu. Legendary for its beach, it is actually a pretty shabby looking community of walled in homes, with very few places to access the beach. (We think that the spectacular homes and beachfronts were behind the smattering of gates we passed along the highway.) Whatever. We were not impressed.
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| A glimpse of a Malibu beach house. |
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| A pretty view of Malibu from the Pacific Coast Highway. The beach is not too appealing here, though. |
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| Typical look of beachfront homes along the main drag in Malibu. (Actually, these are nicer than most.) Maybe they looked worse because we were viewing their back sides?? Every house is joined to the other via fences and/or walls to form a solid barrier in front of the beach. It is basically a walled community. |
The next day we took the rig in for service -- long story, but we ended up without our home for two full days! We slept in it at night, then returned it the next day for follow-up service. What a pain!
During one of those days without the coach we went to Hollywood. Photos of that next time.
Tanks, Panky
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