Venice Beach

Bougainvillea in Venice

Venice houses

While my friend attended a meeting near-by, I ran in the cool morning air on the beach path through the Venice Beach walk. Shanna had lived in West LA for about 4 years so while she was at work, I had taken the Big Blue Bus here many mornings. This path was well worn by my heavy feet but still beautiful though the coastal fog obscured the Santa Monica Mountains in the north. And the temp was in the 50s...back in Michigan, it seems to be still hot and humid for my friend's walk. For me, the cooler the better.

Venice canal bridge

My friend has two boulders drilled out and converted to fountains..one in front and one in back. The hummingbirds love to take their baths in them so I did get some pictures of that. Naomi, Maya and I drove to the Venice Beach canals walking up and down the many paths viewing the interesting canal houses. Naomi was amazed and took many pictures. We then went to Beach Walk by all the craziness, head shops, psychics, tacky shops, murals, crowds of people wildly dressed, loud music, young men pushing CDs in our faces asking if we'd listen to them then demanding money..Naomi of course loved it all.

Even the bathrooms are artistic

Venice storefront art

Wolf house

graffitti tower

Venice mural

On the long way back, we took the quieter bike path with Naomi walking barefoot in the sand stopping to watch the skateboarders with all their tricks at the elaborate set up they have for them. She liked Muscle Beach too commenting on the buff bodies. We were walking for 3 hours with Maya fast asleep in the carrier. She still was asleep in the baby bucket while we had lunch at a nice outdoor Santa Monica cafe sitting in a shaded outdoor courtyard. But later Maya made us pay for her hours of quiet. She woke up very hungry and grumpy. She gulped down her milk so quickly, she then spit it all up starting a vicious cycle of hunger, satisfying herself too fast, and then a tummy ache. So that Naomi could eat in peace (along with everyone else), I took her for a walk in the cool night air. The walking calmed her down somewhat but I was so, so tired... I had gotten up so early to run which I did for 70 minutes and then our hours of walking albeit at a slow pace. Also I had very little sleep for the past 2 nights so I exhaustedly fell into bed guilty as I should have cleaned up more the aftermath of a very elaborate dinner . I didn't hear Maya much but now I do .