LA

After leaving the Barnes and Nobles in Hunting Beach, CA, we finally made contact with Shad’s friend. Blaine was her name, if I remember correctly. We had pulled into the parking lot of an Albertson’s grocery store parking lot, when we received the call from Blaine. According to Blaine, she, her boyfriend, and a group of friends were at a restaurant 25 minutes away from our current location.

Now, for some reason we were under the impression that we were going to meet them in a neutral place and head back to the house where we were going to stay for the next couple of days. The California Kids had something else in store that us laid back Texans weren’t quite ready for.

It was now around midnight, and we had driven a long drive through sand dunes, Tijuana, San Diego, and Del Mar Beach. I was ready for sleep. My counterpart, too, appeared ready to get some shut-eye. But, instead we were driving 25 minutes out of are way to meet the California Kids at a restaurant with its own microbrewery. Trendy, I must say, like the rest of LA.

We pulled into the restaurant and exhausted, meet the friends of Blaine, who we would be spending the next couple of days with. Her boyfriend immediately made it known to us, that he was indeed her boyfriend and that we were not.

Let me tell you about Blaine. I did not really know Blaine as well as Shad, but she was a very attractive girl with a bubbly personality. She had moved to California from Texas a couple of years before our visit and I guess was going after the California dream. Whatever that happens to be. I’ve always believed in the notion that if you can’t accomplish something in your hometown or home state, you can’t accomplish it anywhere else.

Any guy would have wanted her, which explains the boyfriend’s overprotective and possessive nature. I didn’t have any desire to be with her, but I have a different taste in women than most guys I know. I try to find the ones I know will age well.

Anyway, we finally convince the hard nosed Californians that were tired and ready to put up our feet for the night.

We are on our way, heading out of the restaurant, when the beer supply list is made. It appears that we are moving the party back to the living room where we were going to sleep for the night.

We drive the Desert Gem following the boyfriend, and then after 25 minutes, we turn down a street next to the Albertson’s we were just at earlier in the night. The boyfriend’s house is a couple of blocks away from the Albertson’s. We made a circle of 50 minutes driving time on a trip where we had already driven 25 hours in the past 2 days.

We get comfortable, the bongs are pulled out, the beers are open, and the party begins and lasts for all of about 2 hours.
We finally crash on the couch after picking guitars for about an hour, and we awaken the next morning to a pot head’s bong cough. You know the type, right after someone gets it deep down in the lungs, they can’t help but cough.

Instead of a cup of joe to start their day, Californians prefer hitting a bowl.
Well, at least these Californian roommates.

We head out the door about an hour of talking with the roommates and we start driving to our destination Venice Beach.

Now, for anyone who has never experienced Venice Beach, it is just like the beginning of the Lost Boys. The only difference, we were experiencing the Fort Worth Main Streets Arts Festival on massive amounts of steroids, during the day. After seeing some sidewalk acts and various art works aligning the street, we start walking on the beach.
Admiring the ocean, we notice the Santa Monica Pier with amusement park and all. We start walking towards it.

After walking along the beach for quite some time, we finally come to the famed Santa Monica Pier. It looked closer to us on the beach than it actually was, but we needed the exercise after developing trucker cramps from hours of driving.

Muscle beach proved to be unused at the moment, but the most impressive of the entire trip was us stumbling along a 20 member drum circle in the middle of the sand on the beach. We sat down and meditated on the sweet melody of rhythms, until the teenage girls sitting across from us pulled out their pipe and started smoking it up.

Apparently, everyone in California smokes pot. After experiencing the hectic morning commute to Venice Beach, I could see why.

We piled back into the Desert Gem and headed up the 101, through Malibu to see Pepperdine University. One of the most gorgeous and expensive universities in the states that overlooks the Pacific Ocean; we toured the grounds and decided to head to Hollywood.