Hermosa Beach, CA 5/5/02

Hermosa Beach, CA 5/5/02

(This trip pre-dates my first digital camera. Photos will be posted once I get a decent scanner. Sorry! :-)

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Instead of sipping Corona’s though I have instead opted for a hot mocha from Java Man; a perfect non-franchised-random furniture-actually an old house-coffee house, that I just stumbled upon. It’s a damn fine mocha too! I should point out that it is technically the morning so I guess it might be a little early for a beer anyway. I think drinking alone in the morning is Question #1 on the AA website.

I’m off on another great adventure, quite possibly my biggest yet. I left Miami this morning at 7:30 a.m. and now with the help of a few time zone changes I sit on the other coast, quite literally, at 10:30 a.m. Here I will happily “kill” the next 12 hours before hopping on another flight for leg 2 on my journey. Final destination Australia!

God I love saying that!

There’s a recently released song from Jimmy Buffett that has been going over and over in my head this morning. Not the entire song, more like just one line from it. It’s from the title track to the new album and he sings “I’m heading out today for the farside of the world.” Ahhh Jimmy. As usual your words are providing the back drop to another wonderful adventure.

I’m having trouble thinking of what to write. There are too many emotions, thoughts, and excitement in my mind and veins to get out in an orderly fashion. I think it’s because for the first time since this trip popped up a couple months ago I’m actually sitting down with nothing to do or think about. They say silence can be deafening well sitting here with just time to write has my mind racing. The shots of espresso probably don’t help.

Life in WPB has been great, as usual, but I’ve had myself running at an insane pace; busy days at work, training for my first marathon, increasing the amount of freelance work that I do, volunteering for Junior Achievement, Advising the Pike Chapter at FAU, and of course not missing any opportunities to “socialize”. Planning for this trip put me over the top to an institutionally insane pace. I’m rambling….

- Pause to kick back and enjoy the coffee house scene and think -

L.A. Story Part II

I guess my dateline for this entry should have been Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, & Redondo Beach because it’s basically one big area and I have now been to them all. Before I left Miami I was dreading this lay over. I am so excited to get to Australia, waiting 12 hours in between flights seemed like an eternity. Now I’m loving it!

After my mocha I walked down and out on the Hermosa pier. Looking back on the shore line I realized that the houses, shops, and beach trail go on for miles in both directions. The scene is a little different from the beaches of Florida but then again I am in LA; little bigger population than good ol’WPB, FL!

Needless to say I was very excited about the opportunity for exploration. I quickly realized that “killing” time here was going to be pure joy. I keep putting “killing” in quotes because I really don’t think of it as killing at all. That implies a certain degree of destruction. Time is a scarce thing and I like to be thankful for every minute of it. Each minute to me is more like the birth of a new experience rather than the death or end of something. As usual, Thoreau said it best: "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

My next stop after the pier was Hermosa Cycles and Rentals where I rented one blue and black beach cruiser bike complete with basket and lock. I was ready to roam the area. I don’t think I stopped giggling out loud for the first hour. I hit a pay phone and gave the P’s and girlfriend a call but other than that I’ve just been riding. It's been like like my childhood days back in Philo, Illinois; an afternoon riding my bike. Sure the scenery is different. The Black Sleu (a very small creek near my childhood home) is a far cry from the Pacific Ocean but the simple joy of freedom and discovery is still the same.

The Sun managed to burn off the cloud cover and I am now enjoying a sunny, breezy day. I bought some sun block and lost the shirt and now I’m doing exactly what I’d probably be doing if I had never left Florida; sitting outside enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon in the Sun.

I do have a single regret though for this day so far. I wish I could have found a way to get a run in here. The setting is perfect and I am in need of a good run. It is less than one month to go before the marathon and I feel like I have let up some in my training

Training for the marathon has gone great. There have been several very hard runs, a lot of pain, a lot of early mornings, and also a lot of soul searching. But there has also been a lot of smiles, a lot of “God I feel great!” moments and an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment. All this and I have not even done the race yet. The journey is the reward as they say.

I feel like I “turned the corner” so to speak in my training about a month ago. The 7, 8, 9, 10, even 12 mile runs were not hard anymore. Granted I have slipped since then. And 26.2 is a lot farther than 16, my farthest run so far. But I now know /think I can do it. I’m going to run hard the next three weeks, taper for a week, and then I’m there. My mind is set and the plan is clear.

I’m not sure what my finish time will be. I don’t know what kind of pace I’ll be able to manage for the last 10 miles or so. My goal of under 4 hours is still there and I’m going to train my ass off to get it but it’s a whole lot easier to work for a specific time when you have removed the doubt that you can even finish the race.

L.A. Confidential Part III

I refer back to my opening line “Happy Cinco de Mayo!” only now I have been sipping back on a Corona or two so pardon me when my already terrible penmanship gets worse. As my friend Jeff would probably say “F*#@ Off! I’m on vacation!”

Well my day in LA is almost over and if my next 12 days are half as good as this one I’m going to be one happy camper.

After lunch, a late lunch that is, 4:30 p.m. at Hennessey’s…oh wait I have to document the small world story from Hennessey’s. I went in there for a bite and beer. I made my way through the crowd to a single bar stool at the bar in the back. As I was waiting for my food and sipping on the afore mentioned Corona I struck up a conversation with the bar neighbors to the left of me. There names were Gary & Mary and they were in town to visit their daughter. Where are they visiting from you might ask? Well they currently live in Chicago. Not a big deal really. I’m sure there are thousands of people from Chicago in LA right now. What cracked me up was that Mary was born and raised in Champaign (my hometown) and both of them went to SIU (my college in a different town). It cracked me up but I think it made Mary’s day.

Gary and Mary bid me well after they finished their lunch but I stuck around for a few more rounds. The bar was packed and I liked the atmosphere. I watched the Lakers beat the Spurs in game 1 of the Semi-Finals and then I took off for new stimuli. (God I miss Michael and the Bulls. I just can’t seem to get into the NBA anymore.)

I went into some surf shops. It’s funny how surf shops don’t change no matter what coast. They all have the same feel, look, workers, etc. I guess there is only so many ways you can market t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops. Oh I’m not knocking it. I love’em all…and I have a new long sleeve T to prove it. It’s getting chilly here.

After that I was strolling by another bar when I heard the easily recognizable sounds of a live reggae band. Glancing at the A-frame chalk board in front I noticed the bands name was “Crucial”. Crucial? As in the legendary house band at Rum Runners in Key West? Surely not, I thought, but then again they had been playing Key West for years and the last time I saw them MJ I noted that they were getting pretty fat. Maybe they decided to make a drastic change to the other side of the continent. However slim the possibility was, I used it as an excuse to check out the bar.

The band playing was indeed called Crucial but they were not the same band that I have seen in Key West for all these many years. For the record, the LA version were actually quite a bit better but then again that’s not saying much. So good tunes and a crowded bar enjoying the reggae groove on a late afternoon; Cinco de Mayo be damned I wanted a Red Stripe! True to form with all good reggae bars they had some…and now they are two less.

I am now perched next to a volleyball post on the beach. The sun is setting over the water and a chill in the air is starting to affect my fingers holding the pen. It’s not very often that one can say that he saw the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean and set over the Pacific Ocean in one day. On May 5, 2002 I did…and I loved every minute in between.

Escape From L.A. Part IV

Long day and I am now on my way down from my traveling high. I’m approaching Midnight Florida time which is where I woke up last; 4:40 a.m. this morning after 4 hours of sleep. My now very sluggish penmanship is understandable. I should easily/hopefully sleep through the intercontinental flight that I am about to board and wake up tomorrow morning close to Australia and ready to go.

I’ve rambled on all day about how much fun I was having and what has been going on in my life that I never got around to talking about Australia or all the other important things that are going on in my life right now. Oh well, there will be other entries for those.

I will say this; picking me up in Australia is one of my best friends, Dave. It is thanks to his generosity, and frequent flier miles, that I am even on this adventure. My days with Dave, over all those summers working as a counselor at Camp Drake, are some of the best of my life and now 10 yeas after the start of our last Summer working together at Camp we will instead be wandering Australia together for the next two weeks. As great as that sounds, and as great as I know it will be, part of me thinks spending a summer at Camp again with Dave in Central Illinois would be just as good.

“Now with courage on these first steps, follow me and these my brothers. Let us try to find the arrow.”

MJF