DAY FIVE – 19 September 2014
I woke up
in a pre-dawn hours, and took a short walk around the area where the hotel
was. Except for the area where the hotel was, and the few commercial
structures around it, the remaining area was residential (at least in the
vicinity I could see). The homes seemed to be middle-class or slightly
higher, so certainly a nice neighborhood. With liking both the hotel, and
the area it was in, this was a place I’d want to come back to on my own.
I’d grabbed a few brochures of things in the area which I’d like to see on a
return visit (like the Nixon and Reagan Presidential Libraries).
We
followed Malibu Canyon Road
back to PCH, which was the same route we came in on the other night.
I was now
able to see the field of flags more clearly now, and that they were at Pepperdine University Santa Monica Mountains
Cruising
back down PCH, I got to see some morning water, and those who were out surfing
it. Some sections of PCH had views of the beach, but much you were only able
to see the back-end of the houses (which obscured any view of the beach, as
they were so close together). A quick point, the part of the house which
faces the road is always considered the front, except if there’s a part which
faces the water. The section which faces the water trumps, and it always
the front. Not sure why, but I learned that long ago.
The rear
of the houses were basically garages or car-ports on the middle level of a
multi-story house. There wasn’t much room to park a vehicle on the side
of the road, due to how close everything was. Considering the width of
PCH, I guessed that this used to me a single-lane road long ago, and due to
expansion to make it two-lanes in each direction, it ate up what room had been
there. Once these houses had a little bit of a back yard, or some other
space between them and the road, and now they’re backed right up to PCH.
We didn’t
have any meetings today, so per the boss’ directive, today was a “play day,” to
enjoy ourselves a little bit before getting back on the plane. Our flight
was around noon, so there wasn’t a lot of time to do stuff (after figuring in
the wait we’d have to get through security). Otherwise, the consensus was
to investigate the Santa Monica Pier, as we all remembered it from Lost Boys.
We parked
a place near Venice ,
which was aptly named due to the small number of canals in the area. This
was a quaint, little neighborhood of small houses, and even smaller boats
parked along the water. I could see people taking a leisurely row around
the area on the weekend, or to go to a neighbor’s place for some wine and
cheese. The entire section was only the size of a few blocks, so the
residents wouldn’t have to travel far.
From
there, we took a short walk from this nice area to Venice Beach
There were
some interesting murals on display here, but I only took pictures of a couple
of them. The above-mentioned undesirable elements took notice when a
camera came out, so I did that as limited as possible. My attempts at not
trying to look like a tourist fell a bit flat when my boss kept commenting that
she wanted to bring home some hoodies for her daughters. Yeah, that
points us out, too. If there weren’t the police patrols present, I
would’ve been more concerned for our safety.
The actual
beach portion of the area was a wide expanse, much like we saw over at Seal Beach , except that the
sand were was a bit paler.
We took
our shoes off, and wandered across to the ocean. I noticed again there
area was pretty clean of debris and garbage. Considered what we were next
to, I was initially hesitant about wandering across in my bare feet because I
thought I’d step on a discarded drug needle. Once I saw how clean it was,
the shoes came off. And I didn’t want to be picking sand out of my shoes
all the way on the return flight.
Only
yards from the shore, the only sound we could hear was that of the waves
crashing in. As it was the middle of the day on a Friday, there were only
a handful of people hanging out on the beach. I guess I got use to the
large number of people in Austin who somehow have a four-day work week.
Looking
to the right, I could see the Santa Monica Pier, which wasn’t even five miles
away. Keep that in mind how hazy something that close by was, and you
remember that’s the remnants of the smog. While the air quality is much
better here than it used to be, it’s not completely clear.
I decided
not venture into the Pacific to get my feet wet this time. I know how
quickly my pants dry out, but I still didn’t want them to be damp when getting
to LAX. I just enjoyed the sound of the waves, and the sight of the ocean
crashing against the coast. Considering my territory was the Seal Beach region (and
points east), I figured I wouldn’t be back to this specific area any time soon.
Just
seeing the way the waves came in, I could now understand why surfing was such a
big draw. There’s been some good waves I’d seen in TCI, but not to what
was here. Southern California (at least the coastal areas I saw) were
certainly geared towards the “beach lifestyle,” although I still prefer my Caribbean .
From
there, it was just a quick hop back on PCH, which took us past the Ballona
Wetlands Ecological Reserve, as it was a straight shot to LAX. My two
counter-parts for the position we were here for the seminars had lived in California before, so a
lot of these areas weren’t new for them. Yeah, we worked this trip, but
it was in many ways still a vacation for me. I got to go places I hadn’t
been, and had a pretty decent time. Sure there were a lot of things I
wanted to explore and didn’t have the opportunity to do so, but I got to learn
the lay of the land so I’d be familiar with the area when I did come back out.
That’s not a bad trade-off.
And I
picked up a number of brochures so when I do have the chance to come out here
on a personal non-work trip I’d have a couple target locales. Perhaps I
can convince my parents to fly into LAX and meet me, and we can take a Southern California tour next year. The work
project will have me flying to the Los
Angeles region for a week every month for the next
six, so I figure there’s going to be more information gathered about what
interesting things there were to see.
Dropping
off the rental, getting to LAX, and standing in line at security wasn’t too
bad. It was busy because it was big, but things moved. Actually, it
was pretty well organized. The return flight was good, and we got back to
Austin at a
decent hour. And TSA didn’t frak up my luggage like they did when I flew
to St. Croix in June.
I went to
Los Angeles for
work reasons, but I see lots of other opportunities here. I hope on
future blogs you’ll be able to read about other interesting things I did when I
was out here.
For more information on the places visited or mentioned:
Nixon
Presidential Library: http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/
Reagan
Presidential Library: http://www.reaganfoundation.org/
Ballona
Wetlands Ecological Reserve: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/lands/er/region5/ballona.html
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