Riding South

On Sunday, the boys and I headed south along the bike path - me on the bike, them in the trailer. We started at Playa del Rey, then El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and Torrance, and would have reached Palos Verdes, if we'd gone a bit further.

I always feel that Torrance got the raw end of the deal when they were naming these places. Playa del Rey (Beach of the King - or King's Beach), El Segundo (which just means 'The Second' and apparently is so called because it was the site of the second Standard Oil refinery on the west coast - which is still there, along with the sewage works and power station), it doesn't really matter what Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo mean (although Manhattan is named after Manhattan in New York, Hermosa means 'beautiful' and redondo means 'willow'). Torrance was named after someone, who was, surprisingly, called Torrance. (Palos Verdes is actually an area that contains four cities, but if you really care, you can look it up on Wikipedia.)

Here's a picture of D on Manhattan Beach pier.



Anyway, we rode the 12 or so miles to Torrance, where the beach bike path (and the beach) end, and S came in the car to take the boys home, and I rode home.

We met at Redondo beach, about half way home, and went on what was called a "Glass Bottomed Boat" and "The Submarine", which was actually a boat with glass sides under the water, with a slightly grumpy guide / driver (is that what the person who steers a boat is called?) The picture below shows the 'bottom' that you could look through but "don't touch the glass 'cos it's really hard to clean."


Some people who'd hired a pedal boat incurred the driver's (?) wrath by coming too close. "Cut me some slack, I've hardly got any fish" he said. Then he phoned someone and told them about the incident (including the "cut me some slack" bit.)

He also told us (before we'd paid our money) that we'd see sealions. I imagined that this would mean watching sealions majestically gliding through the water. Not a big heap of sealions lying in the sun.


I had wanted to go on the boat that said "30 minute thrill ride", but when we got back from our glass bottomed boat trip, the superfast boat was trundling in to the dock, with one engine obviously not working, and the other one pouring out black smoke - so maybe it was better that we didn't.

Then we went to a Mexican restaurant - a Mexican restaurant which conveniently sold children's meals of pizza. It had quite an impressive view from the window.


We ordered guacamole, and to prove it was fresh, they made it at the table. They brought avocados, and a little bowl of chilies, a lime and the other stuff, and mashed it up there and then. Which I thought was partly a nice touch, but also let you personalise it with your choice of how much chili, lime, onion, etc, you wanted.

Here's a photo of the same place from the outside.