MONDAY, 9/17

MONDAY, 9/17:

    If the weather were good, we’d planned to do the bike trail again today that we did last week, when the weather was pretty yucky.  It promised to be a beautiful day, so we just waited for the fog to burn off and left late morning.

     It did turn out to be an absolutely beautiful day – perfect for bike riding.  Went longer than last time, down past Playa del Rey – probably 13 or 14 miles one way.  Along the way, we stopped quite a bit to take pictures,  at the Santa Monica pier

 

and especially Venice Beach.  Too colorful to resist! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     We really laughed at the one storefront offering Medical marijuana Evaluations on one side and “Botox on the Beach” on the other.  Let’s see . . . if I’m having a bad day, which one do I choose??  Or maybe they have a Groupon 2-for-1 deal.  Only in California! 

 

 

 

 

 

     The stretches of beach we drove by were lovely.

 

  Lots and lots of people out enjoying them, even though it’d mid-September, and kids are back in school.  We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how clean almost all of the beaches we’ve seen are, in spite of the huge numbers of visitors they have.  I have to say – our hats are off to all of the Calif law enforcement agencies who patrol & monitor the hundreds of miles of Calif coastline.  We saw a handful of police and sheriff cars today (in addition to the L.A.  Beach &  Harbor Patrol vehicles). They were unobtrusive, but just reminding people that they were a presence.  Kind of like one of our RV neighbors said about Pappy – he just reminds would-be trespassers in a low-key way that he’s aware and watching (like a good dog should, the guy added)!  And I have to admit – it made me feel safer pedaling through than I might have otherwise felt (not my personal safety, but we had Bill’s expensive camera in my bike basket. And I was approached a couple of times to “donate” in return for a CD.  I felt perfectly comfortable saying “No thanks.”)

    We rode back just as the sun was starting to go down – a soft, lovely sunset, though not a spectacular one.

      By this time, we were ready to stop riding.  We rode our non-recumbent bikes, as yesterday, when trying to turn around in a narrow side street in Sunland, the recumbents carried on the front of the truck got bruised bumping up against a tree.  A wheel on each got bent (didn’t discover til this morning).  Another mishap on this adventure!  One thing we didn’t think about when we were deciding which bikes to take with us was that one or the other might get damaged and become non-rideable; so then we’d have a back-up.  We just brought both sets of bikes because we thought we might use them both in different circumstances.  Now we’ve seen that, in future travels, we should bring both to ensure we have backups!  Anyway, our backsides were becoming pretty tired by the time we got back – a very effective reminder of how comfortable our recumbents are!

     We treated ourselves for dinner by stopping at the Fish Market just below the RV park.  We’ve seen long lines on weekends there, so figured it must be pretty good, even though not cheap.  Got an order of grilled red snapper and ½ lb of steamed shrimp.  Brought them home because #1 – we had our own drinks at home and #2 – they only have outside seating, and we were freezing outside!!  What a difference from Saturday!   (High today of 82).   Brought our food inside, changed from shorts into jeans & long sleeve shirts, and dug in.  Yum – everything was delicious!!  Including the sides – especially the cole slaw.  We’d definitely go back.

     Tomorrow is our last day here.  Actually we were originally scheduled to leave tomorrow.  We have reservations at Grand Canyon North Rim starting Wed, but were allowing ourselves 2 days to get there – probably stopping at Hoover Dam.  But a couple of days ago, we asked each other if we wanted to stay an extra day here and just make the drive in one long day.  One more day of salt air, one more ocean sunset, one more night of going to sleep hearing the waves crash.  That won out over an engineering marvel.