We were able to find parking at the beach lot that is a couple blocks South of the pier ($10, all day). It was still early, so there weren't too many people out. Plus, it was overcast, with just the slightest of sprinkling, so that kept the "posers" away, according to D. We set up camp, which consisted of towels for me to lay out on, a chair for D to lounge on, and an umbrella, for which I forgot to bring the extra pole extension. Look at how short it was:
At least I was able to lay out underneath it.
D had fun reading his Business Week and I too brought an assortment of magazines.
D went for a run on the beach and I took a nap :) By noon, it warmed up, and the ocean breeze felt so good!
Here's D with his sunglasses. I can't find mine...I guess I haven't worn them since last summer, hmph.
D: Hi just wanted to add some comments. L is a good listener especially at low volumes. She was able to hear some interesting conversations. There was a family of four with a boy around 10 yrs old and a daughter around 8 yrs old. The dad told the boy that he and his sister gained weight and that the boy should suck in his stomach. But the boy said that he only weighs 96 pounds and only gained one pound since his last docter's appointment. The 10 yr old's dad said, we are honest with each other. Would you tell you your kids if they were fat?
Later, the boy was talking to the parents of another family and their son, around 4 yrs old, said to the 10 yr boy, "you're a fat boy." The 10 yr old said that's not very nice and walked away. The parents of the 4 yr old boy told him off and lectured him. The 10 yr old boy was not very fat, I did notice he had a kinda round stomach, but was pretty average weight. He definitely wasn't really fat. Anyway, it was strange that the 4 yr old said it matter of factly especially to an older boy. BTW, the 10 yr old's parents weren't there when the 4 yr old boy said what he did.
Another conversation was among a set of parents and three teenage girls. The mother took a picture of the girls and one said she didn't like the way her top looked. Then the mom said to the girls that she didn't want to see any butt-cracks. And the dad said yeah, no butt-cracks. That is pretty funny. If I am blessed with a daughter I will make sure she doesn't show off any crack.
Finally, there was a group of guys that set up nearby us. One of them got the brilliant idea to try to do back flips off of this ledge of sand and then some of the other guys tried it too. Then they wanted this guy to take pictures of them all doing backflips at the same time. A couple of of them were in pretty good shape, but there was one guy with a bit of a paunch that also did it, even though he admitted he didn't have good "hops". They were making it look easy, and D said he wanted to try it, (which I strongly discouraged) but then we heard one of them talk about an injury he had while doing the vault, so apparently these guys were gymnasts and D realized that he shouldn't try it.
Around 3 p.m., we packed up our stuff, put it in the car and headed over to the pier where there was an AVP beach volleyball tournament going on.
We were able to get pretty close to the action, and caught a game with Karch Kiraly!
Nice flourescent pink hat, Karch!
We saw Karch and his partner win one game and then lose another. One of their opponents, Rosenthal, had his own cheering section of some rowdy guys. They were chanting, "Let's go, Ro-sie!"
Nice serve, Rosie!
D: Couple random notes. L thought I looked dorky with Teva's. But I asked her "have you ever worn Teva's?". Teva's are really comfortable. I am representing NorCal ruggedness. HB is the best beach in SoCal. I forgot about the volleyball tournaments in my past blogs. There are 3 SoCal beaches where they have AVP tournaments, Manhattan, HB, & Hermosa. The tournament was great and HB's beach really is long. It blows Santa Monica out of the salt water. K, my brother-in-law says there are a lot of bums in HB, you should check out Santa Monica. I love the close walking to the restaurants from the beach. I do like Hermosa for that reason, but the selection of restaurants/bars is not large. Hungtington is a great every weekend beach. It is close by to our place as well.
Finally, we ate an early dinner at Hurricanes. It's mainly a bar, so I wouldn't recommend it for families, but we had a really good hamburger and chicken sandwich (with our Entertainment Book coupon).
There were a lot of people out and about on the main drag:
All in all, it was an excellent day--sooo relaxing.
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