It has been an action-packed week here in Long Beach. Went for bike rides along the beach, went to the miles-long dog beach, went kayaking (in a kayak that you pedal, not paddle, to propel . Much more conducive to beer-drinking while kayaking), helped out with a neighborhood 4th of July block party (where I met Todd Forman from Sublime, who played sax and melodica!). I also met “Mr. Crumb” who is in a band with Todd called “Jelly of the Month Club.” Got 2 hugs and a free CD!
Here are some photos:
The dog beach:
Seal Beach – we had lunch there one day:
Mural inside Walt’s Wharf restaurant:
Then 4th of July set up and party
I know it’s hard to see but this is ‘Jelly of the Month Club Band.’
https://www.jellyofthemonthclub.com/ Mr. Crumb plays uke and sings, Bud Gaugh, also of Sublime, plays bass uke. Todd Forman plays sax, etc. They are really good! Mr. Crumb played the Star Spangled Banner a la Jimi Hendrix on his electric uke. Never knew a uke could make sounds like that!
Next day we went to the Long Beach Museum of Art:
For the current exhibit, artists did murals on the walls of the galleries
Take a close look at this one. It was painted around a corner. Standing there looking at it, it was difficult to see the perspective that is easily seen below. Pretty cool! And a nice surprise when I looked at the photo later!
This one was a mix of wallpaper and spray paint. Really cool. Also stands out more in the photo than while standing there.
Of course, Kenn enjoyed his visit too.
The LB Art Museum has an outdoor cafe so after the museum we had drinks looking out over the ocean.
Saw this on a phone pole outside the museum. Don’t know what it is but thought it was funny. It says “Birthdays was the worst days.” Actually, I decided to ‘Google’ (yes Brian) “The Yok.” Here is a link to the info about it https://yokandsheryo.com/. Pretty cool! Who knew?
Here is the Jelly of the Month Club CD I got, and I’ll explain the other one in a minute …
So, Friday Jon had to go to San Diego for work. I went with him because my friend Edd, who I met in Delaware, moved to San Diego a couple years ago and we planned to meet up. Edd and I had a nice visit, and then I met Jon and some of his customers and employees at a bar nearby called “Raised by Wolves.” I didn’t realize it was a speakeasy! Right in a mall!
https://raisedxwolves.com/
Here are some photos from inside – it was pretty cool. The first three are in the women’s bathroom (hey, it was cool-looking!)
Then it was on to downtown San Diego where we had a nice dinner and more drinks in the Gaslight District.
So, I unfortunately don’t have pictures, but we ended up in a bar called ‘Prohibition.’ https://www.prohibitionsd.com/. I had already had several drinks, mostly leaning toward vodka, but the bartender convinced me to try this gin drink that I don’t remember the name of. She said, “gin is just vodka with juniper berries in it.” Yeah, okay. But, I did get it, and it was reaaaallly good. And there was a blues band playing – The Fuzzy Rankins blues band. They were really good. Fuzzy would walk out into the audience while he was doing solos, and came up to me. Then, because by that point I had a lot of liquid courage in me, I went up to the keyboardist and started playing in the upper register of the piano. He nicely bowed for me to take over so I sat in for a song! Even got a solo! People were hooting and hollering so it was pretty fun! The photo above shows the CD I bought. Good stuff!
The morning came too early, especially with direct sunlight right into my room. But it was a nice view.
And then it was time to leave. We passed the (now shut down) San Onofre Nuclear Plants.
Today we are having crabs, octopus, salmon, and other stuff. We went to a seafood market in Cambodia Town and they had signs like these above all of the tubs. Read it closely – it cracked me up! And boy did they have a lot of live seafood – black mussels, green mussels, rock crabs, stripe bass, tilapia, eel, lobster, manila clams, littleneck clams. You name it they had it. Pretty amazing.
OK, now I have a little rant, but the issue is partially my fault. I reserved a rental car to be picked up today. What I forgot was, that particular office closes at noon on Saturdays and is closed on Sundays. Of course, I figure this out at 12:13 pm. So I immediately panic and try to call. Of course, I get the “our office is closed for the day.”
So, what to do, what to do? Jon suggested a try renting a car at a different office. OK, I call the location at the airport. I speak to someone there, tell her what happened, and she says she can’t alter that reservation but she can make me a new one. I tell her I am not dropping the car off where I am picking it up. But, she makes me a reservation for just that! Then I remembered I get a discount if I reserve through my old employer. So I tell her that, and she says, I can keep the one she did, but I can also do another online. And, apparently, if I don’t pick the car up, they void that reservation so I’m not charged (we shall see).
So, I make the reservation, go to pick up the car and … there is no inventory! The guy says I can wait an hour or so and see what comes in. I say, are you sure something will be coming in? And he says no. WTF? I talked to him a while longer and he suggested I reserve a car for tomorrow. Apparently a lot of cars are turned in on Saturdays. Wish me luck! I always use Enterprise and am reluctant to use Avis or Budget, although they had a ton of inventory. Of course, that makes me wonder why nobody else is using them either.
Luckily Jon waited for me so I wasn’t stranded at the rental car place.
This may mess up my driving plans for tomorrow, but I should be all right, I think. Google is showing 2 hrs 50 mins to Borrego Springs. I’ll be doing a little bit of stopping to take photos of the sculptures there (hopefully they aren’t hard to find). Then 42 mins to get to Desert Shores, CA, on the edge of the Salton Sea. Then 53 minutes to Palm Springs. I just hope I get a frickin’ car!
OK, I think this is enough for one post. Hope you are enjoying them! And hopefully I can give you a new update from Palm Springs tomorrow!
Until then!