A day at Venice Beach

This is the story of how I woke up in a hotel room in Las Vegas, Drove to L.A, did a few things around town before heading to San Jose.

I woke up to a cool hotel room in a city located just outside of Las Vegas and was thankful that I would be having a shower this morning. After getting all my things in order and playing a few rounds of Apex Legends on my Xbox, I made my way down to the lobby to check out just before 11am. I was a bit hungry just happened to  noticed a breakfast buffet that was located on the other side of the lobby. I walked over and asked for a seat for one. "It's going to be a two hour wait, is that okay?" said the lady at the counter. "Nah, I'll find something else."  After deciding to skip breakfast because of the wait time, I decided to head for Los Angeles. 

Once I finally gained access in to L.A and experiencing once again it's infamous traffic backups I decided to make my way to Venice Beach. I stopped to fuel up before heading to the beach and remember paying $5.00 per gallon for gas. I couldn't believe it was that expensive out there. The entire state was that way. Which is a big reason why I didn't stay in California that long. I would've gone broke.

I showed up to a random parking lot at Venice beach and as luck would have it, a woman was leaving and handed me a day parking pass ticket from her car. I thanked the woman and proceeded to flash the ticket to the woman working at the entrance. "Sir, you are not allowed to go in and out with the same ticket but I'll let you slide this time." I gave her a surprised look and headed through the gate not wanting to press my luck. 

As I headed out onto the beach I noticed a group of people at the waters edge dancing silently with headphones on. There must have been about 40 people in the group waving their arms and dancing to music that I could not possibly imagine had any sort of groove in it. I took a few pictures of nearby sail boats, the magnificent California sunset and made my way over to the Santa Monica pier. By this time I was getting pretty hungry by not eating a single thing that day so I decided to get some food at the Albatross. As I waited in line a man in a hoodie who was about my age turned around and asked. "You've ever eaten here?" "No" I replied. "I've only arrived here to L.A today." "Where are you from?" He asked. "Greensboro, North Carolina. I drove all the way over here." "All by yourself?" he said with his eyes wide in amazement looking around me to try and find some sort of missing travel companion. I nodded my head in confirmation. "Dude, that's awesome! I'm Matthew by the way." " I'm Andre." I said reaching out my hand to shake his. 

We talked a bit in the line and ordered our food and decided to eat dinner together. I went for a burger and he went for a lobster platter. We both ordered a bizarre drink that was called "Honest Abe, The Mexican Lollipop". The cashier warned us that the drink was on the spicy side. We soon found out what she meant on that. The ingredients was a combination of watermelon and habanero peppers. 

Matthew talked about his work and passion for playing poker and I shared a bit of my trip that I have experienced so far. We finished up eating and we parted ways. I made my way back to my car which was parked about a mile away. I walked along the sidewalk dodging bicyclists and shady looking drug dealers that popped up every now and then. My full intention was to sleep in my car in the parking lot at the beach that night but as I was getting situated a police cruiser came by and said over his loud speaker. "The Beach is closed, everyone leave the premises!"  A young woman in a Land Cruiser next to me was chilling inside of her truck, curled up under a blanket with the back glass open. She was enjoying the night, listening to the soft crash of the waves in the distance and for all I new stayed the entire night. I on the other hand fired up my Volvo and headed out. 

"Okay, the beach is out. Let's see what L.A.X can do for me. Maybe I could sleep in a parking garage?" I drove over to the hotels and parking garages of the airport and became more and more discouraged as they all required 20$ plus to park your car there. I was feeling pretty tired and decided to find the nearest Walmart parking lot and try to sleep there.  This wasn't going to be my first night sleeping in my car but this was going to be the first time sleeping in a Walmart parking lot. I was a bit concerned if I was going to be bothered or perhaps kicked out in the middle of the night but I pushed aside my fears and parked my car in the back close to a RV. I made myself as comfortable I could get myself and soon fell asleep. 

I woke up the next morning, very surprised on how I wasn't bothered at all that night and started to make plans for the day. That day I drove the famous Angeles National Forest, went to Rodeo Drive, drove past Eddie Van Halen's house, spotted many Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Rolls Royce's and saw the various characters and their small dogs that reside inside Beverly Hills. I left that night and made my way towards San Jose and slept in another Walmart parking lot that was just outside of the city.

 I knew I was far from home. It was very lonely, yet I had a few friends to call every now and then. I sang along to C.W McCall's "Convoy" every time it came onto my playlist I was listening to and thought back to myself at work a few weeks before, dreaming of being here. I was living the dream. There's no feeling that quite compares to that.