Santa Monica

Vising: Olivia -- a friend I used to work with

Monday – Back to entertaining myself while Olivia went to work. I knew from the beginning that Santa Monica was on my list of places to see, and even though we had been there for dinner on Saturday night, I didn’t see much more than our restaurant and the sunset. So, Monday morning I packed some snacks and headed to the beach. Took me a bit longer to get there than it should have, thanks to traffic. But hey, that’s every day in LA for ya.

Once I got there, I Googled the closest parking garage. My first stop was the pier, which sits a few blocks down from where I left my car. We had seen it from our restaurant on Saturday night, but I wanted to actually walk out on it. Once you pass under the sign that reads “Santa Monica Yacht Harbor, Sport Fishing*Boating*Cafes”, the sidewalk dips a bit so that you’re walking down a ramp, and at the bottom is where the boardwalk starts. There’s a building on the left that houses an ice cream parlor and a carousal. I almost got myself a chocolate milkshake, but decided that it may be better to have real food first. To the right are steps leading down to the beach. We’ll get to that in a bit. I set off straight down the pier, maneuvering my way out of awkward family photos and stepping into some of the shops along the way. Didn’t actually buy anything --

though that’s mostly because everything was so damn expensive. Stopped at random parts of the boardwalk to get some beautiful shots of the water and sand. If only there weren’t so many people around – the pictures would have turned out even better. At the end of the pier sits a restaurant overlooking the ocean. Bet that’d be a beautiful lunchtime view. One quick look at the menu, however, told me that I would have to leave that to my imagination. They have benches outside, though, so people can sit and just stare out over the beautifulness. I did for a bit – taking pictures and toying with the Alaska Airlines app, trying to get checked-in for my flight the following morning. Walked back up the pier towards the beach entrance and down the steps, kicking off my shoes to let my feet soak in the sand. Perhaps a bad idea, because that sand was hot…but Lord knows I hate walking on the beach in anything but bare feet. There were a lot of people, and I didn’t have a suit, so no swimming on my part – but naturally, I played around with my feet in the water and giggled like a little kid. The ocean always has that effect on me. For a few minutes, I just stood there…soaking in all the beauty and wishing that I wasn’t surrounded by so many noisy children. If it wasn’t for them, I could have stayed there all day. But I had other things to do. Like shopping for warmer clothes to wear in Alaska.

Though Joey had, at one point, told me that their summer days were warm and in the 70s, the more I checked my weather app, the more nervous I got about the type of clothing I had packed for the week. Mainly summer clothes, obviously – considering the California weather -- with just one pair of jeans and one cardigan. From what the app was telling me, those articles were not gonna suffice well in Ketchikan. The streets of Santa Monica are lined with shops, and I was able to go into an H&M and get myself some cheap jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and a zip-up. (Thank goodness, because that’s all I wore the following week.)

Once I got hungry, I found food from this little place in the mall called Fresh Healthy Cafe – a yogurt parfait with blueberries, bananas, granola, honey, and coconut. Uh-yum. Then it dawned on me that I had left my car in a 3-hour limit parking garage, so I quickly hustled back and made it just in time. Considering the new clothes I had bought and my tiny suitcase, I decided it best to send some of my “unnecessary for Alaska" things home. Stopped by Target in Sherman Oaks, bought a box & packing tape, and stuffed the box with my dresses, tanks, and shorts. Thanks to GPS, I was able to find a local post office and send my things back to Pittsburgh. I then spent the rest of my afternoon doing laundry and reading until Olivia got home. She went out for a hike, but I declined, saying that I wanted to get my things packed up and ready for a 4:30am departure the next morning. We ate leftovers for dinner and watched the finale of The Bachelor (a first for me) before heading to bed.