Day Five: A long ride to Long Beach

Another Vegan taste treat for breakfast, Banana Pecan Pancakes. I'm so glad my daughters like to cook.

Today was a long Metro Rail ride that seemed short. We went to Long Beach, where there isn't actually a beach. We got there right at lunch time. Both my daughter and I hunger clocks are mostly driven by the real clock. We like to eat at noon. My son-in-law has a different stomach schedule but was willing to accommodate us. We ate at a brew pub that had some really good beer. I can't remember if I was impressed by the food or not, but they had some really good beer.

After lunch, we walked around Long Beach. I had my picture taken with the Queen Mary in the background. We walked around more. The Aquarium had a line so we walked around more. The movie started an hour later than we thought better than waiting, so we walked around more. We walked over some neat wooden bridges and partially around a concrete lake, pond, decided not to rent a paddle boat, and walked around more. I said I wouldn't mind some lemonade, so, we walked to the farthest point we had previously walked and finally sat down. Since it was a restaurant, we felt that we couldn't just order our drinks. So, we ate again, a salad and fruit plate dessert for me. Then a walk back to the Metro Rail station.

Some years ago while my wife and I were on a road trip to San Diego and we drove down to the Long Beach Harbor. (We were hungry.) There, after eating, we saw a Hat Store that we both commented that our oldest daughter would really like. She did. I just wish that my wife had been there to see her there.

Again, on the ride back on the Metro Rail we made very good connections. At the 1st St. station our rail passes were finally checked and the only time they were checked, at least mine and my son-in-law's were. My daughter didn't get hers out before the Police Officer checking moved on. I'm sure the officer thought that the likelihood was very small that she was skating when her two companions had the correct passes. One person couldn't produce a current one and was taken off the train to get a $250 ticket. The trip back, including the mile or so walk back to their house was again about two hours that passed quickly.

It would have been longer if we had remembered the right station to get off to see the "Acres of Books." Everybody in my family likes to read, and are quite pack rats about it. This is partially why I currently have 33 moving boxes of books along the wall in my bedroom. In what turns out to have been almost prescient, I evacuated a storage unit and what wasn't sold, given away, or even thrown away is in my garage, and in my bedroom. I will be going through these boxes and may find myself reading a few of them again. After all, reading is one reason there is Life after Layoff.

When we got back to their place, we drank more beer and I got to see my second Kevin Smith movie, his first, "Clerks."