With the initial thought of heading to San Diego, we eventually decided that we would rather make less of an intense day of it, and travel up north and see what we could find. Frankly, we were all shattered after the last couple of days’ activities and festivities. With Paul and I having only a limited number of days off work, there was always a sense to do something while we were available. Additionally, the idea of going somewhere new and foreign was enticing, especially after being unable to travel for the past couple of months. So we were heading north up the 405-freeway by mid morning, having locked in Santa Monica on the GPS system - and reveling at the thought of a new destination to visit.
The traffic was reasonably light, so we made it to the Santa Monica exit in good time. However, somehow he managed to miss the city itself, so figured we’d continue driving up north and see what we could find. The highway follows right along the coast for miles, so it was great to just cruise and take the odd tourist snapshot out of the car window. We drove as far north as the famed town of Malibu before stopping to check it out. The beach here was long and narrow, with waves lapping up on the shore gracefully and dancing beneath the pier as they exploded up its pillars. Looking inland, the entire coastal span of the town is shrouded by steep and rocky hill country, dotted with precariously placed mansions for members of society fortunate enough to afford them. We hung out on the pier for a while, and watched the renowned Malibu surf-lineup as the longboarders battled for supremacy amidst a fairly meagre swell.
We headed back to Santa Monica after our little Malibu expedition. I had heard much good about the place, and was excited at the thought of being in the area that virtually birthed modern skateboarding with the rise of Santa Monica’s own ‘Z-boys’. Again, we headed straight to the legendary pier with the idea of checking out the town district after for a shop and a bite to eat. The pier here was insane, and completely different than anything we had seen thus far. It was huge and wide, full of people and littered with trashy little booths attempting to sell the most obscure souvenirs to the nearest unsuspecting, naive tourist. To the left was an actual theme park built on the pier – fit with ferris wheels and even its very own roller coaster. My bare feet were burning terribly on the wooden boardwalk as I observed the terrific mayhem of it all, so I initiated an escape plan and had us all heading to the beach to lie out and chill out. When we got there however, it just didn’t seem all that appealing. Spots anywhere near the ocean were a prized real estate, and the water itself was filthy – plagued by t-shirts, band-aids, fishing lines and a bunch of other underwater nasties. It really made me appreciate my home in Orange County, and just how blessed and lucky we were to be living in such a place. We decided we’d seen about enough of Santa Monica, and ditched the plan of seeing the township altogether before heading for Venice.
Driving through Venice was an altogether different experience and, just like Santa Monica, seemed like a world away from our home in Huntington Beach. The place had a vibe oozing with seediness and shadiness at every street corner, complete with plenty of crazies occupying the sidewalks and any plausible back-alleys. The infrastructure was tired and jaded-looking, and really rustic and run-down amidst a sky of blue. However, there was something about the place that charmed me a little inside. Maybe it was the uniqueness and the spectacle of it all. I think the word that best describes it is interesting – a place that you have to visit if you make it to Southern California, even if you may not want to go back after you see it. Anyway, we parked up and started strolling along that famous beach walk. In my head, I hoped that it would somehow resemble my childhood memories of ‘California Games’ on the Sega, with fluorescent bikini-clad women graciously roller-blading along the path and uber-buff dudes walking around, proudly content at their almost alien-like physique, freshly painted with a bottle of tanning-lotion. Instead, it was more of a tattooed up, neo-punk scene that predominantly graced us, although there were a couple of steroid-fiends out and about as we passed by ‘Muscle’ beach. After watching some basketball at those Venice Beach courts, having a look at a few sunglasses stands and being barraged by some inept ‘musicians’ on the street, we figured we’d better get going soon if we were to have any chance of beating the deathly L.A five O’clock traffic.
We arrived home a little tired, but altogether stoked that we had proverbially ‘ticked’ off another destination, and accomplished something new. We treated our weary bodies to a hot spa that night at the hotel in preparation for the next day and the activities that undoubtedly lay ahead.
***Next episode: San Diego!*** Will be up in a couple days. So keep checking!
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