And not a lot else ...
It is Sunday today so a lie in is definitely allowed. I am up quite early and off to the much more reasonably priced laundry room which has more than one machine and its only $1 a time. The hoodies are finally washed and returned to their happy clean state , not to be worn again now until the journey home.
Everyone is up around 1030 so by 1130 we venture out for breakfast and try Mimis Café which is next door and Dibb recommended. Its busy and having been told a 10 minute wait , after half an hour Andy is ready to jib it as the lunch menu is appearing and we wanted breakfast. Finally we are called and yay, we can still have breakfast. We are pleased that we stuck it out. It’s a nice place , the food is delicious and plentiful and really reasonable. We have a Chipotle Breakfast Burrito (Andy) , Cinnamon French Toast with bacon( Me) and Pancake Shorts with either Sausage or bacon ( boys). Along with juice, sodas and plenty of coffee refills, including the offer of takeout coffee for the road, this comes to an amazing $53 so we leave a healthy tip and set off with very full tummies.
Its about 1pm now and Venice Beach is on the agenda. Connor wants to know if he can hire a surfboard , no chance . As we were to discover, you cant get anywhere quickly in LA, no matter what day of the week or time of day , its just damn busy all the time in every direction. So we hit lots of traffic and finally arrive at the Beach around 2pm courtesy of a few satnav circuits
I do find these signs slightly disturbing
The next challenge is to park which we do in some rip off lot at $25 but are just thankful to get out of the car and not be going round narrow one way streets avoiding cyclists, surfers and whatever the collective noun for beach bums is. Out of the whole beach ,which is miles long, we manage to have picked the bit that looks and smells like a public lavatory , probably due to the fact there is a massive Hari Krishna festival which is giving out free food, burning incense , making a lot of noise and taking up a lot of space. Its bedlam. In some ways its great as its very atmospheric but as someone who just doesn’t like crowds, its not my thing.
We go up to watch the skateboarders and decide to hit the beach. We see the Baywatch style lifeguards in action as they discourage people from being near the water that is red flagged . Andy goes off to have a wander. The boys declare it is far too hot to walk anywhere other than into the Sea and I am left to both mind the bags and watch the boys – which necessitates eyes in your head and backside to do both
the return of the arty bird shot
the boys discover the sand is quite hot
Any sign of the Hoff ?
