Venice Beach

Living in Southern California, one would think I would have been to Venice Beach more times than I would lever like to  admit. The truth is though, up until now, I'd never been to the place! Thus, I decided to plan a day. I took the day off work and headed west for the beach.

Overall, I have to say I did not enjoy Venice all that much, it was overated and overrun with gang bangers and druggies. I thought I had made a wrong turn and walked into the parking lot of the Great American Smoke Out concert, what with pot head after pot head either asking for marijuana or protesting legal bans!

Of course, I rarely ever have good first impressions of places, so who knows, the next time I go I might fall in love. I did enjoy walking the canals. The homes were lovely and the view was pleasant.

Street Performers

Children's Park on the beach


















Muscle Beach

The Canals

Venice Sign in reverse












The Big "V"



























Tree Man and Faith







One funny thing did happen on this trip.  At least, it is funny now.  Among all the street performers, vendors and junkies, was a man making sand sculptures right along the boardwalk.  As we approached his sculpture of a big lizard, we pointed it out to our oldest daughter.  Unexpectedly, to our dismay, she stepped towards it and proceeded to stomp the lizard sculpture down!  Horrified, my wife screamed, drawing even more attention to the scene!  I felt so terrible I reached into my pocket to give the guy some money, as he took it, with our apologies, he said to us, "its not the first time today".

Mission de San Juan Capistrano

I've been to The Mission in San Juan Capistrano plenty of times.  It's the only mission I've really ever visited. But my hope is that my family will someday take a road trip and see all the missions in California, maybe  when my oldest needs to go to one for a school project, we're kind of an all-or-nothing family. But that will be another story for another time.

Last March we went to the Return of the Swallows Celebration that happens every year. Since my childhood I've heard a mixture of the legends that surround the story of the swallows, so this was the year I finally decided to partake in the festivies.

It was a gorgeous day at the mission with blue skies and fluffy white clouds overhead. Part of the celebration (alright the entire day) was a celebration of Italian heritiage. The aroma of delightful food filled the courtyard, vendors selling all manners of italian product, and an Italian group singing bad renditions of "that's Amore" is what you will encounter if you arrive on Italian Day. A word to the wise though, when you go, for almost any event, you should probably take some cash with you. I forgot and had to skate by on the the couple dollars I had.

Oh yeah, and another word to the wise.... There are no swallows flying around at the return of the swallows celebration!

But even if swallows are scarce, it was still a beautiful day to go, as evidenced in our photos.  And the mission is beautiful, a true American ruin.  If you haven't seen it, make plans, between the beautiful mission and the quaint little town of San Juan Capistrano, you wont be disappointed.

The Little Town of Arroyo Grande

Near my parent's house is the small Central Coast community of Arroyo Grande. I've passed the place numerous times, but thanks to our WestWays magazine, decided to take a gander at the Grande. The main reason was to see their swinging bridge. The little downtown section is quaint and relaxling to walk around. Its filled with antique stores and other little knick-knack shops, most of which we by passed.

Upon looking for a place to eat, my usual rule of thumb is to find  local places that seems to be the filled with people (easy enough if you ask me). Thus we stumbled upon Alphy's Broiler. Their tri-tip sandwich was oozing and dripping with delightful goodness with every bite. It was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. Kellee and I loved this place and will be hitting this place up the next time we're in a 50 mile radius. Plus, the staff was really friendly and seemed to be grateful having people eat at their place. 

                          Afterwards we stopped in and had a bite of Ice cream @ Dr. Burnstein's Ice Cream Lab, a fun old fashioned ice cream parlor. Again friendly and helpful staff with amazing ice cream. The best one was a red wine ice cream they had made with wine from one of the local wineries. If you love ice cream like my family does, then this is a must stop for you.
The swinging bridge is the only one of it's kind in California. Here's the link if your interested in its history. Really though, it's pretty secure these days, I didn't feel much movement, maybe about as much as you get from the swinging bridges at Tom Swayer's Island in Disneyland. No...much less. But it was pretty cool to say we stopped by the only swinging bridge of it's kind in California.

The pictures of the church are just that, pictures of a quaint little church. But we liked the mailbox. It gives the town some character.

A king is Born!

Since we went to the recording studio where Elvis exploded into Stardom, and went to the gaudy grand place known as Graceland, we thought we might as well stop by the place of Elvis’ humble beginnings; Tupelo, Mississippi.


I love streetslights on a wire...it's like Christmas year round.

Interestingly enough, I found out afterwards that this is also the hometown of my stepfather’s dad. I never had the chance to meet the man, but it’s interesting to find some family history on the journey.


It was a couple bucks to walk through the house and see it preserved almost the way it was when Elvis was a kid. They also have an Elvis museum on site, but after spending a couple hours at Grace just prior it didn’t seem all that fascinating to try out. They also had a gift shop, with a fairly large overpriced selection of Elvis goodies. I did purchase a postcard, which they will send for you if you request.


On the Porch where the King was born.

The house was a really quick tour. I mean it’s only two rooms; the bedroom area when you walk in and the kitchen area. But, for fast-paced historical roots of an icon, it was worth the visit. I enjoyed the house much more than Graceland, it didn’t feel like going to see a big production.

I’m told that down the street, somewhere in the quaint downtown section of tupelo there is still the Hardware store where Elvis’ mom bought him his first guitar. So, if your traveling around trying to get your Elvis tour in you might want to stop there as well.


The inside furnishings of the two room house.



A relica model of the car Elvis and his family used to move to Memphis.

The Leaning Tower of Texas

The leaning Tower of Texas, or The Britten Water Tower is in every Route 66 book, and roadside attractions, book out there. It is another staple of Texas ingenuity of roadside advertising.

When we passed by, I really wanted to stop the car, get out and take some pictures. I thought it would have been awesome to make it look like I was pushing the tower over or stepping on it…something like that. But, we were already behind schedule and had already agreed to stop at the Largest Cross in the western Hemisphere. While, I think it was a good choice, I’m still kicking myself for not going with my gut on this one. So for the time, I’m stuck with just a quick snap-shot of the leaning towers just to prove I was there.


For those of you interested…Yes, the tower was built that way on purpose. Ralph Britten the owner of the tower intentionally cut one leg shorter than the rest to give it that nice lean look. It was a marketing ploy to get people to pull off the side of the road and stop at the Britten truck stop, garage, and restaurant.

The Real Knott’s Theme Park: Calico

Somewhere in the desert twilight just outside the Barstow lights, the Spirit of Walter Knott lives. While his name might be plastered all along Buena Vista sights and Cedar Rapids moguls might pedal his name for their profit, there is still a spot, a blimp on the map, that shines like silver with Knott’s glimmering touch. Calico is such a ghost town.

The town is a mixture of odd, historic, amusing, and amazing. It was once a thriving mining town that hit the payload with silver and Borax. 86 million was extracted in silver and 45 million in Borax while the town was booming. At its height over 1,200 people lived in the town, had 22 saloons, their own "Chinatown, and red-light district.

But, when Walter Knott found the town it was in ruins; Dilapidated. Everyone had gone; mining had come to an end. It was literally a ghost town. Knott bought the town and moved various local pieces to his Orange County theme park (that you can still find there). But he didn’t just level the town and keep the historic memorabilia. No the town has his signature stamp all over it. It has a replicated school house, bottle house, mystery shack, and talking dummies. Of course, the Knott family no longer owns the property, they gave the land over to the state and it is now a national park. Thankfully, our grand state has kept the soul of the town alive.

Two major fires have hit Calico; eighty percent of the original town is gone, but that shouldn’t stop a person from visiting a bygone era. It still looks and feels like an old western ghost town, only mixed with modern quirkiness.

A couple weeks back we decided to go out there and check the town out. Actually, our Sister In-law Michelle was heading out to scope out some photography sites and possibly get a Christmas pic of her kids. Since she knows I enjoy visiting these kinds of places she decided to invite us along. To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled about going to Calico. I just thought Faith would like to hang out with her cousins and I would finally get a chance to see the Stephen and Michelle’s new house.

I figured we would probably be there about an hour, walk around and look at knick-knack shops, take some pictures and call it a day. But to my utter delight the place was awesome! We ended up getting there about 12pm and leaving around 5:30! The only reason we left was that the sun was going down, the town was closing up, and it was getting cold.

There were lots of different things to do while hanging out in Calico; great places to take pictures, pan for gold, watch gunfights in the street, take a train ride, walk through a mine, see the mystery shack (this is a replica of the same one that was once in Knott’s Berry Farm, but IMHO the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz was far superior), and check out the cemetery.

We also ate at the Restaurant in Calico, it was all right but nothing to brag about. I recommend the Firehouse Chili which is homemade. Also if you have children, keep in mind that the children’s meals are adult prices. It might be better to go into Barstow and eat at the McDonald’s Train station (which I can no longer stomach since be marooned there for hours when our car broke down) or hit up the first Del Taco also located in Barstow.

So next time save your money, stay away from the multi-mega- million dollar corporation that dangles Knott’s name like a carrot on a stick and head out to a little town in the desert that still carries on Walter Knott’s Spirit.

Calico Slide Show

Olvera Street

After the search for the Norwalk Bee we headed out to LA to the Ronald Reagan Building for some Apostilling. By the time we were finished it was getting into peak traffic hours, so we opted to spend the rest of the afternoon at the historic Olvera Street in downtown LA. Kellee has always wanted to go and since we were so close it seemed like a great time to make our way over there. After we got there, we were a little disappointed that we didn’t opt for the two hour traffic jam.

I had been to Olvera street about a year before, walking through with some friends as we toured the city. I wasn’t impressed then, but thought that we had just gone on a bad day. It must have been their equivalent to a farmer’s market; letting all the vendors put out their products. However, to my chagrin this was not a one-time event or a weekly happening, this is Olvera Street. The place looked like a swap meet or as some of my Hispanic co-workers called it "little TJ". This is a little surprising to me since this is the place where they have so many marches and speaking engagements. Why wouldn’t LA make this street the pride of LA’s Hispanic community? Why wouldn’t you put in better eateries, art galleries, stores that sell current Hispanic fashion and crafts? Instead we get rows and rows of easy-ups with 98cent store trinkets. In my opinion, San Diego’s old town is a much better time with their many scrumptious Mexican restaurants and old style feel.

This is not to say that everything is bad about this historic area of the city. You can tour the first house in LA for free, it has an excellent court yard where musicians can often be heard, and some of the places to eat are probably pretty good (at least they smelled that way) just not the bland one we went to that day.

Overall though, I wish we would have by passed this street and moved on to Chinatown.