Yes L.A.: Long Beach and San Pedro

I just got back from a week-long trip to L.A. and I have so much great stuff to post about on here. I hadn't been there in about 15 years (and my last and only trip was spent doing touristy things like visiting TV studios and Grauman's Chinese Theater) and I found myself never wanting to leave. (Unfortunately, I did in fact leave and am sitting back home, though I did find myself looking into how much rent is out there--about the same as it is here.)

Our first stop Sunday morning was the Long Beach flea market. We missed the famed Rose Bowl flea market in Pasadena by a week but decided to check this one out.

It had rained pretty heavily earlier in the morning (note the huge puddles) so even though the weather had cleared up, the flea was pretty empty of both shoppers and dealers. As a result we didn't really find anything though it seems like on an on-day this place would be pretty hopping.

Afterwards we headed down to San Pedro, home of the Minutemen, to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.

There we met some fish like this guy here. It was kind of a small aquarium but they had some really interesting exhibits. I feel like I actually learned a lot there!

One of the aquarium's project labs.

The aquarium is right on the beach in San Pedro so we took a little walk afterward.

Some birds hanging around. (A flock of seagulls, you might say.)


After that we ventured into the OC to Huntington Beach, which is kind of like the New Jersey of Southern California. I seem to remember reading about how the HB jocks discovered Black Flag and ruined the punk scene, and it makes a lot of sense.

After that we raced back up to L.A. and made it there just in time to get ice cream sandwiches from the CoolHaus truck (we were literally the last people he served; even crying children were turned away) and then watched a bunch of awesome movies at the Silent Movie Theater: La Brune et Moi, Shellshock Rock, The Slog Movie, and Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (all part of the Destroy All Movies fest). Director Dave Markey was there in person for the latter two screenings, along with Jennifer and Jonathan Schwartz, who appear in both movies.

And that's just day one!