day83

Day 83 (November 11, 2006) - Santa Monica, CA

Laurence almost convinced us yesterday to skip Los Angeles and go see the Channel Islands National Park instead. We thought about it and tried to arrange it, but the weather this morning is not that good, and the islands are best visited as an overnight trip during the winter (to see grey whales) or in the summer (to see orcas). Right now, not even the flowers are in bloom. We needed advance reservation this weekend, which we did not make. Next time...

Se we keep going south to Santa Monica along Hwy 1. There are many but many cyclists on the road this morning, entire platoons and a few loners. The Santa Monica Recreation Area is on our right, to the left the ocean and the beaches. We drive through Malibu, a laid-back community with a famous beach for surfing, on the hills you can see the mansions of the rich and famous (Tom Hanks still lives here, as well as Barbra Streisand). After Santa Monica, we arrive at Marina del Rey and try to book a place in the Dockweiler State Beach campground. They tell us it's full but if the people with reservations don't show up by noon, they will give away their spots. We decide to hang around for an hour or so to see if we get lucky. It's beach time for me! Petr is walking around. We do get luck and get the only spot available. We are basically parked on the beach with the RV, the bike path runs right in front of us. Everything says it's a good day to bike, even the weather. So we ride on the bike path to Venice Beach, to the famous Oceanfront walk (Venice boardwalk as the locals call it) where California's "beautiful people" hang out. Truth is, we see everything and anything: from the drunks to the homeless, to the tattoed Schwarzenegger wannabies and the bleached babes. Strange people, not so much beautiful, I guess an alien would fit right in and go unnoticed. There's a cement wall where kids with spray bottles paint graffitis, we ride by and it's green and gold, by the time we ride back it black and red. It's a work in progress, there must be hundreds of coats on it. There a rock band playing in a square, some crazied woman is shaking to their music. There are shops and street vendors selling anything and people buying anything. It's Babel. We ride out to the Santa Monica Pier and back to the campground in time to capture the firey sunset right in front of our RV. As of tonight, I have ridden 500 miles since we started our trip. Thank you very much.