Pictures: Succulents at Disneyland (we have no succulents here, as far as I know), Friday afternoon traffic on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles , and the beach at Corona del Mar on Saturday. It was a lovely beach and town, but I am still suffering with a crispy sunburn - the most painful sunburn I've ever had. Ouch!
It was a nice non-vacation. I'm beginning to figure out that we, as a family, really do not know how to vacation. We go places, yes, but then we run ourselves ragged. There's really no rest until we're home again and our lives return to normal (usually days later, when we've caught up with the laundry).
I never go anywhere (and I mean ANYwhere - not even to the grocery store) without a notebook and a pen, and one afternoon in California I found myself whiling away a few minutes by myself in the car with the window down, so I scribbled down some of the smells of California: a flowering bush, green grass, dust, and exhaust fumes.
Los Angeles is a HUGE place! Our own valley, by comparison, is a manageable size. I'll never complain about traffic again.
The most fascinating place we visited was a yachting surplus store where they sold new and used nautical charts, sails, propellers, roaps, flags, compasses, brass plaques, pullies, etc. It was definitely not for tourists, and we landlubbers were in the way. We stopped in originally to see if they sold t-shirts. I was hoping to replace my long lost Frank's Fisherman's Supply t-shirt that I bought in San Francisco in 1981.
It was good to be in California, but it's always good to be home.
3 comments:
I have never been on a vacation that I came home and didn't need a vacation from being on vacation. If you figure out how to do that let me know.
~Leah
I was just admiring a planting of "hens and chicks" (succulents)
last Saturday at the water conservancy display garden. I grew lots of them in Santa Fe!
Love, Mom
L.A.is an amazing place. Filled with art, music and poetry. One night while I was there (going to an art showing) I was walking down town with Heather, Nicki and Mike and we ended up running into a tent city. It was reminiscent of a Hooverville right smack in the middle of down town. There were hoards of homeless people. I asked Nicki who works for the L.A.P.D. if it was illegal, she said no that the city shelters were over flowing and that they would rather have them in tents then sleeping with out shelter at all. It seemed absurd here there were all these sky scrapers, buildings stretching for miles with tons of unused office space and these people were living in tents. L.A. is filled with wealth. I would rarely see a car under 2 years old. The shopping centers and beaches were filled
with beauty full people, post operative models and atractive
actors but here in the heart of the city was well over a thousand homeless people pining for there own tent. Nicki said to me, " I'm sorry you had to see that." and I said ," You shouldn't feel sorry at all, this is reality however terrifying and uncomfortable it is
these people are here and this ex hists, while I'm here on vacation these people are trying to stay warm at night, in fact it I am glad I saw it ,it makes me feel truly blessed."
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