Day 29

Full day planned. Heading to Malibu and Venice Beach. Should I dare mention again that the traffic in LA is horrible, but it is! Oh well, you would think the freeways would be fast but with all the on and off ramps it keeps slowing things down. We made it to Malibu and drove up the coastal highway for a bit, very pretty. Checked out and then decided to book ourselves a campsite for when the boys go home. Drove down to the Santa Monika Pier, the end of route 66. Enjoyed some lunch at Bubba Gumps, our server was quite entertaining.

Chose a bike rental place, although it was quite busy and they seemed rather unorganized but we did manage to get some bikes although our choices were limited. It was busy but not crazy, and it would be easier if the people walking would stick to the walking path instead of the bike path but it was fun nonetheless. The beach was very deep and very long, going on for miles. It did not take very long to reach Venice Beach and it was not what I had expected. Not sure what I thought but what it turned out to be was a place for hippies selling their wares and for homeless people to sleep. Was quite sad to see the situations that some people choose to put themselves in. We peddled as far as the Venice canals and Tim and I walked into the canals for a bit to enjoy the views. We saw an older lady lying on a long surf board wearing a swimsuit floating along in the canal, not sure how clean the water was but she seemed quite content. The canals looked like a neat place to live, very small yards though.

Continuing on our bike ride we stopped to watch some young skateboarders and there was one young lad that was quite good. We biked, we stopped, we walked, we sat on the beach, Nick got his feet wet - it was cool. After returning our bikes we walked to the end of the pier to watch the sun set, we were not alone. We strolled through the mini amusement park and slowly made our way back to the car. The freeways were once again busy, of course. We stopped at a new restaurant, BJ's for supper. The steak that Tim and I had was very good, Nick had to wait a very long time for his Parmesan chicken but due to the wait they did not charge us plus they gave us a free dessert, which tasted delicious. That was very nice of them.

Another day done and only one more to go with the boys.