It was a good bicycle ride this evening. We rode down to Cherry Beach, where Judy and I used to go as kids. This is the first time we’ve gone back there together. We both remember where our spot was; nothing to mark it but sand, but we still know right where it is. That was our getaway in the old days. Once we got to that spot, it was just us. There were friends around, but still, it was just us. No parents and no way for them to contact us. They didn’t know where our spot was. It was there we planned our getaway. It worked.
Long beach
The Queen Mary.
Long Beach
Every day, on the hour, the Queen Mary sounds the ship’s horn. They probably don’t sound it at night since we haven’t noticed it then. There is a WWII submarine tied up next to the QM. I still fondly remember the tour of a submarine I got with cousin Ed when I was a teenager. Turns out it wasn’t the submarine that was open for tours that weekend but we didn’t find that out until we were already below. The big dome next to the Queen Mary where the Spruce Goose used to be is now the check-in site for cruise ships. Long Beach is a cruise ship harbor. Next thing southeast of us is a park. Just southeast of that is a jet-boat harbor for Catalina Island boats. There are two that alternate ends of the trip. Judy dropped our bikes off at a shop on 4th and Cherry street for a tune-up. The bikes take a beating from the Texas Coast salt air. They got pretty rusty and stiff. Had to replace a few cables. She cruised through Carroll Park on the way back, and struck up a conversation with a woman there. Turns out she is Buzzy Lyons’ wife. Didn’t catch her name. Buzzy still lives in his parents’ house. He was off golfing. He is retired now and golfs every day. Murphy is down and out and gone. No-one knows where. His house is being rebuilt. We had a visit with Janet Bigelow. She lives with her sister Bev now. She’s thinking about moving to Arizona to be with one of her kids. The cement face of the tunnel at Cherry Beach is still there, but the tunnel under Ocean Boulevard to Bixby Park is gone. They just finished restoring the bandstand in the park. The Villa Riviera hotel is still here but it’s in a giant bag, getting refurbished. So is the Art theatre. The Union 76 gas station on the corner where some of us worked is gone. It’s a vacant lot with a chain link fence around it. Roger Lawson has reportedly moved to Oregon to be with one of his kids. The city streets sure are narrow for the Jeep. We’ve already checked out the direct route back to the freeway in the Jeep to make sure we don’t get the motorhome onto any of those tiny city streets. Stopped at Anaheim and Pacific for lunch. Hot pastrami sandwich and tacos. An orange city bus went by. There were only two people in it. The lighted display on the outside; the one you can control from the inside, said: “Emergency 232. Call police!” We called the police to report it. Bus number 11048. Westbound. Spent a surprising amount of time on hold, waiting for an available operator. When we did get connected to the police, they seemed interested though. Heat wave for May. Blue sky. 90 degrees. At the temperature goes up, the volts in the park go down. We’re supposed to get 120 volts on each leg. We’re getting 110. When it drops below that, we get a low-voltage warning in the coach. We turn off the air conditioners, concerned we might damage the motors if we run them on too low a voltage. The RV Park is full. Guess the infrastructure can’t handle as many rigs as they can park. Is this called a brown-out? We can turn the air conditioners back on at night to sleep. Life in Long Beach.
Golden shores
There is a small marine biological reserve right across from us. We get to watch it drain and fill each day with the tides. There are families of Caspian terns and Elegant terns that live on the shore. The young birds are big enough to fly, but still the parents feed them. The youngsters fly out to meet the adults and coach them back to the right place to land and hand over the fish they just brought back. You can tell which kind of tern it is by the tone of the conversation. Elegants are a little lighter; Caspians a little heavier.
Golden Shores
It’s not exactly our Gulf Waters patio, but we still get our morning coffee.