VENICE BEACH

When I visited the Santa Monica Pier I basically went down the street to visit Venice Beach. It is only a hop, skip and a jump east of Santa Monica.

Venice Beach is quite an adventure. If you're going to go I suggest heading out early because it can get quite crowded and finding parking is a zoo. I tried to vist Venice Beach about a month ago and was stuck probably 10 minutes getting down one block. This time I went during the week and parking was wonderful BUT some of the little stores were closed and it didn't offer the same variety or volume of people and things to see.

You'll find the touristy type of things to buy (t-shirts, beach clothing, trinkets, jewelry, sunglasses and some art), entertainers hoping you'll leave a tip or two. You can get a henna tattoo at several places along your walk, maybe watch or join a game of basketball, maybe the muscle builders are still there showing off their pecks in their own little corner. Or maybe you'll rent a bike or take your skates and get a little exercise as well.

Stroll the walkway of entertainment or venture across to the beach and enjoy the ocean view, maybe take a dip after passing the grafitti covered statues before you reach the sand. Venice Beach is definitely not just your average beach.

THE BEACHES

Over all, my trip this weekend to the beaches turned out to be a bit of a bust. I did get some decent pictures so I can't complain too much but I was disappointed by how much Redondo Beach Pier had changed, traffic after I left the pier was awful and it took me way too long to get down the coast, I couldn't stop at two of the beaches because of traffic and everywhere but the pier was a zoo. So, I'm taking the almost pictureless way of introducing you to the beaches down around L.A. Though these beaches are in different cites, they are all still a part of L.A. County and anyone in L.A. knows or should know where these beaches are.

REDONDO BEACH PIER - See the post below this one.

DOCKWEILER - I drove by it but didn't stop. I used to hit dockweiler beach a lot. I've always loved the beach and ladies, if you don't know the sand is like a natural pumice on your feet.

MARINA DEL REY - Marina del Rey is more about the marina than it is about a beach. It is where most of the boats are docked. Marina del Rey is mostly known for, at least by me, for the restaurants around Admiralty Way. I attended a meet 'n greet in December at The Warehouse. Great place! I drove through Marina del Rey today, thought I'd take some pics of the restaurants but that didn't work out either.

VENICE BEACH - I started to go to Venice Beach but the one street I took toward the parking lot I knew of was backed up and literally inched for four blocks. It would have made for some interesting pics because Venice is always full of interesting things, vendors and people. I was getting a headache from traffic so I opted out.

Cool! I just found a live webcam of Venice beach. Of course there's nothing going on now but check it out during the day. I will.

SANTA MONICA - When I was a kid this is where my family always went. I will always have a fondness for Santa Monica because of the fond memories. I thought I would go the the Santa Monica Pier but decided not to go. By this time I wasn't in the mood for how many people were there. I made a wrong turn and couldn't back out so I wound up having to pay $6.00 to drive through the parking lot which was half occupied by a filming crew's hundreds of trailers. I'm exaggerating...a little.

By now I'd been on the road for three hours and was a little ticked that after all this time I had not yet put my feet in sand or been near the water so I ventured down a packed Pacific Coast Highway and found a strip of the beach past the pier where the parking lot was practically empty. Eureka! My kind of place! I paid $7.00 for parking, parked, took my tennis shoes and socks off, put my earphones in, turned on my IPOD and treked across the sand with my camera.