SATURDAY 3RD MAY 2025
The words of Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” (is have some fun) rang in my head as we rode the Big Red Hop On Hop Off Bus down Santa Monica Boulevard. We were headed to the famous pier, known as the end point of Route 66.
Sunny California? Don’t believe a word of THAT hype. For the duration of our two stints in that state it was cold and often rainy.
And on this day it is both.
A picture tells a thousand stories:
As you can see, this is really a standard fun pier. At least the carousel was dry. Not that we rode it.
We had been unable to meet the friend of a friend the day before. We had a book to handover so now we went in search of a post office. That took us into the town proper of Santa Monica. Actually even a bit on the outskirts.
Job done, we ducked into a place for coffee. A live music duo were just finishing up. We ended up staying for a meal and by the time we made it back to the bus stop we were getting towards the last one for the day.
I’m trying to reconstruct events from memory but I don’t think we did anything more significant that day. We had already worked out that a bus ran right in front of the hotel so we may have taken this from the Big Bus drop off place. And there was a night that we ate a diner meal in a converted rail carriage not far from the hotel, so that was either this day or the previous.
Whatever we did, we kept going past a statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle at an intersection. Why it was there I have no idea, but hey! I photographed it anyway.
And these couple of shots are for Paol Soren who asked after photos of our hotel view. The neon lights at night were impressive.
The Reluctant Retiree 
It looks like you’re becoming an pro navigating around California.
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The weather was appalling when we were on the pier and we had to warm up with soup ! Glad you had a good time there.
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We did our best. It wasn’t blowing a GALE, although the umbrella got blown inside out. The weather for this entire trip has been disappointing. Hasn’t exactly stopped us – but it is getting tiresome.
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The time of year, I think may have contributed to it being rainy down there, Gwen. I know up here in Oregon, the rainy season starts tapering off in May-June and the really dry weather starts in mid July. Still plenty of clouds up here at this time. That dry period seems to be getting longer over the years, and we have had a drier than normal May, though plenty of clouds.
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The weather has been sketchy everywhere and people have been commenting it is more like April. We are in Boston now, and afternoon rain caused us to break off walking the Freedom Trail and return to the hotel.
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I really love the umbrella photo and then the other umbrella photo and then you in a raincoat and hat.
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Exactly what you associate with Santa Monica?
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You both manage to look happy enough
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Smiling in the face of adversity.
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