Sand and Sea

Back near the beginning of summer I'd posted about this year's return to the beach, for movies on the beach. It was a good time, but it was night and didn't feature the sun and swimming of a proper beach trip.

Went through most of summer without making a return trip, either for conventional beaching, or for a movie. Before it ended, however, I managed to get two trips in!!!

Both trips were to Horny Corner. The first time surrogate was arranging for several people to go... then his car broke!!! On the day he'd been planning, I asked if he wanted me to come by and pick him up, and he said he wasn't going, and everyone else flaked out, too. I had been looking forward to it, and younger came with me.

It wasn't crowded at all, and it was a very high tide!!!

There's usually seagulls perched on some of the swim area buoys, but this time there was a pelican on one of them!!! We usually will swim out to the buoy line, and when there's a gull, we'll see how close we can get. Often, I'll get within around 6 feet and they'll be getting a little sketchy, then I'll go under and swim under to around the same distance on the other side, and they'll fly away while I'm under. Got this picture of a pelican on the wing after we were out of the water.

We mostly got there, got in the water, and swam most of the time!!! Out to the buoy line, then down to the bridge. Last year one time when surrogate and I had gone with just us, we'd done the same swim, but this was the first time for younger. Swam back, dried off, then went for burgers at Grill 'Em All!!! I got the same as last time, the Witte, and younger got the Long Beach Dirtbag, a chili burger with bacon, chipotle ketchup, and garlic aoili. And, of course, the primate fries. Once again, I was craving a premium burger, and once again was not disappointed!!!

Two weeks after, we went again!!! This time, surrogate came as well. Got there, and went straight into the water and out to the buoy line!!! Scared off a seagull by swimming under it, swam down to another, and we got really close to the buoy and gull!!! This guy (actually I think it was a girl from the coloring) was pretty bold!!! While we were there swimming around and talking to her, another gull flew up and tried to chase her off, but she stood her ground!!!

The first time we were there, they had the inflatables up, but they were gone the next time. We swam over to the float that they stage from, and climbed up and jumped off it a few times. It's got an unusual construction, with two floats joined together with a wide area of grating between them. I swam under the grating area, and it's a bit strange and claustrophobic under there. Younger swam in after, and I went back under, and surrogate finally came under again. After that, I went back to shore, dried off, and re positioned a chair in the sunlight. As the summer comes to it's end, the light fades faster!!! The sunlight was right to the edge of the water, and I turned the chair towards the sun for a selfie. Oh yeah, it was a fairly high tide again!!!

The guys were still soaking, and I was mostly dried off, so I went and changed. On the way back, I spotted a snowy egret hunting along the water's edge. I went to take a picture, and he was heading off. I followed, parallel to him, and finally caught up for a decent picture.

I really like the burgers at Grill 'Em All, but it's a little expensive!!! After we finished up this time, we headed over to the local In-N-Out for some also great burgers, at a considerably lower price!!! One of my favorite summertime activities (besides hitting the beach!!!), I've realized, is dining outdoors when the sun is down, but the temperature is still up!!!

... So I Drove Her to Boyle Heights!!!

There's this park that a lot of family friends and us end up going to on a fairly regular basis. It's actually the park where Colby Jack (since renamed the rather generic Simba) came from. Back in June we were heading there for a picnic while the Lineage Logistics warehouse was on fire for a while, in yet another show of the incompetence of our city under the current mayor.

I had been hearing about, smelling, and seeing the plume from the fire for most of the week. They were saying it was in Boyle Heights, but that's one of those localities that I'm kind of unclear of the boundaries of, and I didn't bother to look it up to see exactly where it was.

While we were heading there, I got a much better look at the plume and saw more or less nearly exactly where it was!!! Not far at all from that park, and the plume was turning the sun red!!! The way the wind was blowing, it wasn't that smoky at the park.

We went there again not long after that for the 4th of July. By this time, the fire was out, but now all the food that had been stored in the warehouse was rotting!!! Once again, for the most part the breeze would be blowing in a way that you usually don't smell it from there, but every once in a while it would shift to where you get a whiff. It's not far from the freeway, and there's a pedestrian bridge over it, which is where this picture was taken.

Went there again for a birthday a little later. Someone had a Frisbee, and it got thrown up on the roof over some tables and the restrooms, so they had boosted up a girl, then while she was up there had her throwing down candy for the kids!!!

The most recent trip there was on Labor Day, and once again headed over to the pedestrian bridge. Also on that day there was a Giratina raid close by that had a bunch of people who'd signed up with the recently introduced RSVP system, so a few of us joined in and did it.

Just before that weekend a storm had blown through and left a lot of cloud cover, which made for some dramatic sunset!!!

Another recent time we were there for a gender reveal, so there's some more smoke!!! First one I've ever been to. The smoke seemed a little inconclusive, but it's a girl!!!

By the way, the title refers to a joke I'll use for a stinky area. I usually use it for Norco (You know how to get to Norco??? Go east until you smell it, then go south until you step in it!!!)

She told me to kiss her where it stinks... So I drove her to Boyle Heights!!!

The Ridge Run

Here we go again with the Catalina vacation!!!

This is the post for the ridge tour. It was the last full day we were there. It departs from the plaza. They put surrogate in the passenger seat, or as they called it, the co pilot seat, and the younger and I were directly behind him.

We depart from the plaza, and of course we have to go around the back of town, since Crescent is pedestrian traffic only, something I didn't really even consider, since we normally are the pedestrians!!! Came out Clarissa Ave. right past Green Palace Jr., and I got a picture as we drove by. Onto Crescent to Pebbly Beach Road, past the landing.

You know what else is out a ways on Pebbly Beach Road??? Buffalo Nickel!!! We had just been there the night before.

There's a lot of the infrastructure that you don't see staying in Avalon. They've got the cargo docks, the only gas station, and the garage where they house and maintain the Catalina Island Company vehicles. Had one of those sweet Flxable buses there!!!

A little further on, there's the power plant.

Not much further on from there, we left the paved road for the dirt road up the side of the hills. Spotted a red tailed hawk perched on a tree!!!

From above, our driver and guide, Bear, pointed out the quarry near the end of the island.

While we were ascending, you could see Avalon from above!!! We were high up!!!

And there's some of the dirt road!!! Not really, with the exception of the first part of the dirt road, it was fairly flat with only gradual climb. Bear said, “one of these day, I'm going to try climbing that!!!” We encouraged him to make it that day, but as expected it didn't happen.

And there's the first we saw of the other side of the island!!! As well as the ridge road off in the distance.

And there's a couple of ravens!!!

Great view!!!

As we reached the other side, you could see clouds streaming in off the ocean and up the mountains, very cool!!!

Towards the end of the canyon that Avalon is situated in is the Wrigley Botanical Gardens, that I had been thinking I'd like to visit at some point. They moved the original pavilion that had been where the Casino now is up there, and converted it into an aviary. I didn't know, but they had also made a mausoleum that William Wrigley Jr. is buried in, that is visible at the end of the canyon in this shot.

The dark spots on the ocean are the shadows of the clouds!!!

After we passed some radio towers and the reservoir, we began our descent down the other side of the canyon towards Avalon, down Stage Coach Road.

Another shot, from above, of the Descanso Beach area... which, incidentally, we never made it out to this year!!!

Good times!!!

Beach Boys

I've previously mentioned that one of my favorite things to do is to go to the beach. Ordinarily, I only end up making it once or twice a year, sometimes on or around my birthday, and sometimes when I'm on vacation.

It so happens that surrogate son also happens to love going to the beach, and since I've had some latitude in my schedule these days, I've been able to go several times this summer!!!

I think this may have been on the trip I'd previously posted about. Surrogate son was forming perfect spheres of the sand!!!

There's a pile of them in the foreground, in the shadow.

This was another trip we made to Horny Corner, with surrogate son's sister and another friend. I think his mom may have been there that time as well.

I know one time, maybe two times, my younger and surrogate son had gone when I had something else I was doing. We have a large duffel bag that has our beach towels, swimsuits, and sunscreen in it, and he'd taken a smaller bag with just his towel, suit, and sunscreen. One of the times, he didn't get the sunscreen swapped from the smaller bag, and got a sunburn. This time, he looked like he'd been slapped on the shoulder by someone with a lot of sunscreen on their hand, and that area didn't burn or tan!!!

This is the sand structure that we made on that day. I started out by drawing the moat, then removed the sand and piled it up in the middle. The moat wanted to cave in. The setting sun made for a cool effect on it!!!

Something else I'd not mentioned, Grill 'Em All has relocated down to Horny Corner!!! They used to be next to a theater in Alhambra, and I'd been there at least once. I was familiar with Grill 'Em All because they would help out at the Oinkster during Burger Week, and I think Oinkster may have featured some of their burgers during it.

They've still got the metal theme going, but now with a beachy locale and vibe!!! I may have been craving a premium gourmet burger... Anyway, on the same day, we ate there, and it was awesome!!!

I like the picture of surrogate giving his sister the side-eye!!!

Surrogate son got the Behemoth, which is served on two Texas Toast grilled cheese sandwiches!!! It was too much for him!!! I got the Witte, which has cream cheese, deep fried bacon, sriracha, malt vinegar aioli, and grilled onions. It was glorious!!! Also got an order of Primate Fries, basically In-N-Out's animal style fries, but the fries are better.

Got this picture of the seagulls in the run off channel from the showers on another trip to Horny Corner. In the background, you can see the inflatable play floats they've got set up out there. They only let a limited amount of people on at a time, of course, and depending on the day, there can be a line to go on it. We went one time, and on our most recent time down there they'd taken them down for the season.

We've also gone a few times to Santa Monica beach. I like it a little better, it's got some surf. The first time we went there, surrogate son had wanted to walk out on the pier, so after the sun had gone down and we'd changed, we did. It drops down on the end for a fishing platform, and when we were heading down, one guy had his pole bent down, so we had to stay and see what he caught. Turned out to be a spiny lobster!!! I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to catch them with a pole...

Got a nice sunset picture...

And the fabled pier...

Last time we were there, a Coast Guard chopper doing maneuvers. It was kicking up a good amount of vapor with the rotor wash!!! Stayed around for a while.

Another beach selfie with another friend!!! This was on the time before the last time we went to the beach.

Oh, I had a cooler that I would usually take that came with our house. It was old, and as it got used more, the plastic on the edges and the lid started cracking. I bought a similar size replacement, and then a couple of weeks later, I was taking a walk, and one of our neighbors had a give away pile that had another similar sized cooler, but with a split lid, so now I've got two. They also had a nice boogie board that I grabbed, but we only made it to Santa Monica one time since I got it, and the surf wasn't great for boarding, the waves would crash as soon as they formed.

We stopped by a Taco Bell on the way back. Next door was a donut place, and on the side wall, they had the donut angel background!!! It has a little curb that you have to hop up onto, and it's not easy to balance. Took pictures of surrogate son and myself in front of it, but we were both off center. I moved the donut on his picture!!!