When I'm riding to work, I sometimes chat with other people cycling (these chats are usually short) but one thing they say is "It's really nice riding South from where you live, but you must know that". I don't know that, but I nod in agreement. (Otherwise they win). So today I decided to do that. I rode South on the bike path, until the bike path ended, and then I rode on the road. I went about 25 miles, and almost reached Long Beach, but it was time to go home, so I turned around at the Donald Trump Golf Course. The route is here, if you're interested. I took a lot of photos on the way. Enough to make you bored. Here's a selection. of pictures.
This is Dockweiler beach, near where we live - near to the beach and then maybe a mile south of us. The airport is very near, and planes take off over the beach. When there's a big one (like this) they seem to come very low. A few years ago (before we were here) some bits fell out of the engine of a plane, and landed on the beach.
This is at Redondo Beach. There were pelicans diving for fish, and I spent ages trying to get a good photo of one, so I could win a BBC Wildlife Photography prize, or something like that. I didn't quite succeed.This was a splash that was made by a pelican. I know, you're going to have to believe me. The person in the foreground is sitting on the beach (although you can't see the beach, the pelicans weren't far out.)
This is a bit hard to tell, but it's a pelican with it's beak full of fish, and doing that sagging thing that makes pelicans more interesting than seagulls.
This is a pelican diving, and another one thinking about it.
This one is just thinking.
And now it dives. (Or did I just turn the camera sideways?)
I can't remember why I took this photo. It might have been the highest point - a sign said that was 1600 feet. I don't have a reference to know how high that actually is, but it felt very, very high, after I'd ridden up the hill.
This is Redondo Beach pier. It looks like a normal pier, sticking out into the sea and stuff, but then it turns a couple of corners and comes back. I didn't think that was, strictly, a pier. But they seem to call it that, and who am I to say they're wrong?
This is the turning the corner and coming back bit.
There's my bike.
This was a sign on the pier. Why? What's he going to do? Hahaha.
A tanker, of some sort, on legs. No idea why.
This is me and my bike at the San Vicente Interpretive Center. It's the best place for seeing whales from, when they migrate. Except not in June. They finish in May, and they come back again in November.
Tanker in the distance. Although it's all beachy and nice, there's also some fairly serious industry about. It might not be a tanker, it might be a freighter.
Huh?
Oh, it's true.
That might be Manhattan Beach pier, but it might be Hermosa. I forget.
If that was Manhattan Beach pier, this is Hermosa, and vice versa.
More industry - this is Scattergood generating station - it runs on natural gas.
This is possibly the same freighter/tanker, or it might be a different one, on the way back.
That's just a view of the beach on the way home.
I went into this pizza place, at Hermosa Beach.
And I saw this guy. His name was Marcello, and if you managed to eat a whole tray of pizza (16 slices) you got your name on the wall (you're not allowed to throw up, or go to the bathroom, until you finish). Here he is, almost finished. He'd been eating it for an hour and 20 minutes, which might explain why the person sitting next to him looks a little bored, and is fiddling with her cellphone. He was dipping the last bits of crust into the water, to help them slide down a little easier. He managed to eat about 2 bits in the 10 minutes or so I was there.
This is me, at the Trump National Golf Course, which was the end of my ride (well, the half way point, it didn't end until I got home again).
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