Thursday, September 23, 2010

Pictures from my summer vacation! part 1

Hah! You thought I'd never get around to it didn't ya? Unfortunately it would be the last time I'd use this camera of mine. I don't know why nor how it broke, but it just stopped working only about 3 days into the eight day vacation In Los Angeles. It was so much fun taking one week off from work and spending a whole weekend with a few weekdays sandwiching it together. I woke up every morning and put some plan together and did something. And I can't thank my friends enough for spending time with me, offering their time, and their homes.

Manhattan Beach:
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How sweet it was to be waking up right next to a beach, and the best thing about waking up over there, was their 8am is our 11am, so there was always plenty of time and sun left everyday.

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So many cars were out there of so many different ages, and very little damage, or wear and tear, with hardly any rain out there and a low humidity. It does wonders for keeping cars in good shape for years, and leads me to think it might do wonders for people too. the air out there always contained a light breeze and as long as I wasn't in downtown, there weren't too many concrete sidewalks to reflect the bright sun and amplify it to uncomfortable proportions. You might be wondering why I posted the pic below. Well I had to show you that they carry surfboards on bicycles!

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And speaking of climate change. The friend I was staying with told us about this Lake of Self Realization. A place dedicated to every religion to bring some sort of spiritual blah, blah, blah. It was really amazing. Surrounded by hills and the Pacific Coast Highway I believe, but beneath all of that, The lake was absolutely tranquil, the temperature had to have been 5 or 10 degrees cooler than it was up on the road, and there were trees everywhere which created breezes and shade to see the lake.

Pacific Palisades, The Lake of Self Realization:
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Heading to Hollywood:
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If my camera hadn't broken I'm almost positive I would've had 200 to 300 shots of cars. I went to a car show later on in the week and sadly have no pictures from that.

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The Hollywood Reservoir:
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The Hollywood Reservoir I think totally set the tone for this vacation. And it also speaks to something I do quite often with my pictures. We came here, and saw the Hollywood sign, an esoteric, cliché touristy thing, but we did it in a very in crowd way. We saw it from a place that not too many tourists see it from. Up in the hills the Hollywood Reservoir was constructed at around 1929, perhaps part of the public works programs, or maybe even before that. Anyway, it was an awesome L.A. version of the same stuff I yearn for over on the east coast, seeing our common urban world mixed with natural life, seeing how the two mix.

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At the Mulholland Dam, which looks like it was done fairly cheaply, but still with so much care. Now adays you don't see such projects made with an attention to aesthetic value: The curve on the overhanging roof, details on every thingy that holds up the fence, etc...
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Brian saw this bump at the dam, and it reminded him of a Mario Brothers game button. so me and Elissa took a series of pictures of him pretending to jump on it. As coincidence would have it, it was Brian's last week in L.A. before he left to go back to his native land of coastal Maine. I knew Brian and two others out there from a school I went to out there in Maine where we all studied either photography or film.
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It seemed like the Reservoir was a sort of Central Park for the people of the area, always jogging or walking their dogs.

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The story with Elissa is that I knew her through a friend of mine here in New York, and he ran a few of those meet up groups, you know, those are those groups that people with similar interests get together for to do something and meet people, via the internet. And my friend Jesse whom I met her through, and who I've known since about the age of eight, was one of the few Meet up group leaders who wasn't a skeezy freak, and she was also a normal person with no pretensions about her.
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Let me go off a little bit on a cabbie's diatribe... These porta-potties... were the best I've ever had the pleasure of using. Actually I only used the one on the, left, I think. It had soap!!! I've seen one's with soap dispensers before, but actual soap! filled to the brim! and the entire unit was clean too!! You don't know how many times as a cab driver I've had to open front and back doors to act as a barrier, and pee in the alleyways, or there was a time the week before, when I had to climb over a chain-link fence to get into the unlocked porta-potty. Who locks up a bathroom, in the middle of the day!
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Ahhh, sorry about that rant, hopefully the photo above can take you back to serenity.
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Yes this was my rental car. It was fantastic. I marveled every single day at how tiny it was. Each time I parallel parked it seemed like the hood was going to be a foot, or two, or three longer, but then I'd open the door and get out, and there would be 3 feet, of space in front and in back. That car did everything right. And all the drivers were sooo polite. Although seeing how terrible driving really is now, I wonder if it had a lot to do with the car being grey, rather than yellow.

Part 2 of pictures is up and ready, I just need to add captions to that blog, it'll be up tomorrow. Stay tuned for the desert.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, i'm Petra from Hannover... EXPO-City 2000..., germany and i love your foto every time

John said...

Nice to get away.
Thanks for sharing.

Kalei's Best Friend said...

The air was sooooooooo good cuz u had the sea air... If u had driven to the SFValley, u may have turned around...Never heard of that lake your friend told u about...wow...must be a hidden secret...lol...