It's Always Sunny in LA: September 2012

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

#41: Bike the South Bay Trail

When I first moved to LA, I worked in Venice Beach. Every Monday, a friend and I would meet up on the Venice Beach boardwalk, get sandwiches, and eat on the beach. Even in the middle of winter, the boardwalk would be crowded with bicyclists, rollerbladers, skateboarders, all mixed in with a very eclectic mix of people walking around. And I could never figure out... who are all these people crowding the boardwalk at noon on a Monday in the middle of December? As I was on my all-too-brief lunch break, I was very envious of these people and their apparently laid back life-style that could afford them a boardwalk bike ride on a Monday.

Four years later, I have learned that everywhere in this city is crowded in the middle of every day, because millions upon millions of people don't actually have traditional jobs, or any job at all. Plus, the Venice Beach Boardwalk (and the bike path, locally known as "the Strand") in particular are very popular tourist destinations. Well ok, I was still super envious of all those seemingly laid-back people biking along the beach, and vowed to eventually set aside a day to take a beach cruiser ride along the boardwalk for myself.

With a little research, I learned that the Strand is actually called the South Bay Trail, and runs all the way from Will Rogers State Beach in Malibu down to Torrance County Beach. The entire trail is 22 miles long, which is entirely too long for a leisurely day ride. Plus, like I really want to ride my bike to Torrance, come on. So I decided to focus on the best beach areas - Dockweiler State Beach to the Santa Monica Pier, which clocked in at just under 10 miles each way.

My friend Marsha, who is always up for relaxing adventures (not an oxy-moron as one may think) and I headed out to rent some beach cruisers on a perfect Sunday afternoon. We rented our bikes from Fisherman's Village in Marina del Rey, and once we got fitted with our sweet bikes (Marsha with a seafoam green beauty, me with baby blue) we set off on the Strand north towards Santa Monica.

The first 20 minutes of the ride consisted of going around the Marina, through all the boat docks and then down Washington Blvd towards the ocean. Along the ride, I learned that Marsha had never been to the Venice Beach Boardwalk, so when we arrived at the beach, we decided to walk our bikes along the main thoroughfare so she could soak in all the unique, quirky, and frankly amazing people-watching Venice has to offer. We walked past the Venice Art Walls, which are a group of walls that graffiti artists are allowed to paint over any way they'd like. We passed dozens of booths selling locally-made wares, the Venice Beach Freak Show (home to several 2-headed turtles, amongst much more!), groups of rollerbladers performing choreographed dances, and even talked to the World's Greatest Wino. After getting lost for a few (20) minutes, we parked our bikes outside Zelda's Deli, one of the best sandwich shops I have ever eaten at. We feasted on amazing panninis, bottled Coca-Cola, and fresh-made mini donuts. This is one of my most favorite meals in all of Los Angeles.

After the Venice Boardwalk, we continued north, with the beach on our left and awesome people-watching on our right. We passed the Venice Farmers Market, the Santa Monica Traveling Rings, several amazing kite fliers, and eventually made it up to the Santa Monica Pier. It was literally a perfect Sunday weather-wise, so the pier was full of people. We decided we didn't want to carry our bikes up 2 flights of stairs just to walk them along the pier (Marsha and I both have already experienced the pier several times) so we instead opted to take the tunnel under the pier and kept on riding.

After a few more minutes, we decided to turn around because we realized our butts were getting sore from the bike seats, and we still had 10 more miles to ride. We cruised back through Santa Monica and Venice, and stopped at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants on Washington Blvd for a margarita break. Two delicious peach and mango margaritas later, we hopped back on our bikes and continued down to Marina del Rey. We kept heading south past Fisherman's Village, down to the Ballona Creek trail (where the LMU rowers practice) and all the way down to Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey. Many people may not know Dockweiler by name, but if you've ever taken off in a plane from LAX, you have flown over Dockwieler.

After we had gotten our fill of the late afternoon breeze and the loud jets taking off overhead, we turned around and headed back to Fisherman's Village to return our bikes. Our all-day rental came with a free scoop of ice cream (a business after my own heart) which we enjoyed while watching the seals and pelicans play around in the water.

Overall, we had a blast. It was the perfect, laid-back, slow-paced touristy day I had always wanted. Though I am so, so happy that I eventually moved away from the Westside and now only visit occasionally, it was great to experience everything again, but this time from a beach cruiser.

The map of our journey.

Photo op in Venice!

The bike path with the front-row ocean view

Preferred method of transportation from now on: Baby Blue Beach Cruiser

Yachts in the marina, Marina del Rey

The Santa Monica Pier

Ballona Creek tributary leading to the ocean in Playa del Rey

Sunday, September 9, 2012

# 29: Catalina Island

In a recent issue of LA Magazine, they listed 50 "great" weekend getaways. In classic LA Mag fashion, about 45 of them were completely infeasible without an unlimited budget and a private jet. But one of their suggestions caught my eye: a ferry trip to Catalina Island, conveniently located just 20 miles off the coast of Long Beach. I mentioned the idea to a friend, who was appalled that I had never been to the island. She had, in fact, been there so many times that she had lost count of how many times she had thrown up on the Catalina Express ferry. (I made a mental note to suggest the trip to some other friends instead).

Then, not a few days later, my dad called me out of the blue, to suggest a family trip to Catalina! I was so surprised and excited. Moments later, of course, I realized that the only reason he suggested doing something fun was because my brother was coming into town. Of course. But either way, this was even better. Because instead of driving to Long Beach and then taking the ferry, we could take my brother's SUPER convenient plane and fly there ourselves!!

I am not a huge fan of flying, and though I've flown in my brother's plane several times, I'm always a bit nervous. However, this flight was awesome. We flew right over LA, and I was able to pick out all the landmarks that I knew from 10,000 feet above. After we flew over Long Beach, we banked west and circled over the island. When I spotted the runway - literally a small strip of pavement on top of a mountain - I died a little inside. But, I fully trust my brother's piloting abilities, and he landed us at the "Airport in the Sky" with no issue.

Once we landed, we took a shuttle from the airport down into the island's only town, called Avalon. The drive through the interior of the island was beautiful, but slow due to the tiny narrow road and numerous hairpin turns. But we were able to see a majority of the island, which visitors that come via the ferry wouldn't even have access to. We even saw a few of the notorious wild buffalo that roam the island, but our shuttle driver told us to be sure to stay faaaar away from any buffalo ("They aren't cows" he admonished).

Once we made it down into Avalon, we rented a golf cart and got exploring. Most people on the island don't have cars (not much room) so golf carts are treated like normal cars, complete with having to obey the stop signs. I don't think I've ever seen any golf cart on the Paramount lot actually stop at a stop sign. But anyway. Our first stop on the island was the botanical gardens. After meandering through the brief paths of indigenous and endemic plant species, we headed to the top of the hill towards a large cement structure. Upon reading the signs, I learned that it was a memorial to William Wrigley Jr, of Wrigley gum and Chicago Cubs fame. Apparently, he bought the island from a struggling development company in the 1920's and turned it into what it is now. He is responsible for paving the first roads, building the first hotels and attractions, and providing basic power and infrastructure to the island. For the trivia-curious: Wrigley used the island for the Cubs spring training location for over thirty years, and the Wrigley family deeded the entire island to the Catalina Island Conservancy in 1975, who now controls 88% of the island.

The memorial was, for the lack of a better word, incredibly ostentatious considering the location and the laid-back lifestyle of the island. But, he funded it himself, so it would make sense that the memorial would seem incredibly over-the-top and out of place. After we walked up and down the memorial, we drove around to the back side of the island, to see the Wrigley Mansion, which is now a very beautiful (and I would assume, very expensive) hotel overlooking the entire bay.

We wound our way back into town (after several photo-op stops, thanks Dad!) and drove past the famous Catalina Casino. There were lots of signs informing us that the casino is not a "real" casino, and that the word in Italian means "large meeting space" and was initially built as a dance hall. Now it's the island's only movie theater (playing Hope Springs, a little bit behind the times!) and on the 2nd floor is the world's largest circular ballroom. The building was built - as well as much of the town - to mimic Monaco. My dad, who has been pretty much everywhere in the world, could attest to its similarity... though I think no one would be surprised that Monaco was a bit grander.

After all the driving, we were starving and settled in for water-side dining at Armstrong's seafood, followed by ice cream and fresh-baked waffle cones from Olaf's. As anyone who knows me knows, it was the perfect lunch. We finished the day off by some gift shop shopping, and a final stroll around the main dock. By the time we were getting ready to leave, the Catalina Express ferry had come in and the town had quickly become incredibly crowded. We were happy to take the next shuttle back to the Airport in the Sky and take a leisurely flight back to my parent's house in Camarillo.

Overall, it was a great day, made especially memorable by being able to spend time with my family. The weather was absolutely perfect, the flight was smooth, and the adventures were awesome!!