Los Angeles

                                              April 24th ^- 29th , 2013                      Mileage: 890

Venice Beach

Headed North on the 15, we made our way to LA, spending the night at a little park about an hour outside the city. Booking it west to the coast we spent our first night in Venice Beach. Katy was doing a little better but still wavering. We found a nice neighborhood spot a couple blocks from the main strip and the beach.

Setting up camp, we pulling out the beach chairs, socialized with the neighborhood duck, and enjoying the sunset on the roof.

I was expecting more body builders, street performers, and all around madness, but it seemed rather tame for a weekend. We still marveled at the stimulus street with sunglass shops galore, a mild range of street performing, and marijuana clubs for days. It was a gloriously sunny day that we took advantage of, burying our toes deep in the sand on the trek to the ocean, sprawling on green grasses, and sipping coffee-mug cocktails.

Thursday: Santa Monica

The next morning the three of us headed up the 1 and stopped in N Santa Monica so Katy could take a medicinal jump in the ocean. This little mermaid will dry out if not dipped in the ocean regularly, and the long week in the desert was messing with her system.

On a side note; People really seem to be tapping into their bright, bold side on the Los Angeles. There is a highly congested population of neon in LA beach towns. With the bright sun, the sparking ocean and neon splashed on various articles of clothing on nearly every hot-bod that jogged or roller-bladed past, sunglasses are a must.

Driving up Santa Monica Blvd towards Echo Park after our dip in Big Blue we checked out a camp store. Rob and I are eternally in the market and Katy was interested in finding a Hawaiian sling for Mexico. We got some sweet pointed-tip bows for my arrow (gunna kill me some wabbits) and some fishing line and trout bate for our “on the river” meals.

After that is was off to Echo Park to find a place to sleep.

Thurs- Monday Echo Park

Putting up Santa Monica Blvd we hung a right on Sunset blvd towards Echo Park and looked for a place to sleep. I have been to this neighborhood before visiting friends and with my mother to go to our all-time favorite vegan restaurant that doesn’t taste like a vegan restaurant, Sage. I was eager for us to spend some more time there and get to know the dad-to-day.

In the search for a sleeping spot we quickly realize that our rig was not cut out for the hilly terrain. Of course I was driving and feeling rather pressured by the fast-paced traffic of people who actually had places to be. I made a quick turn up a hill, sort of mindlessly following navigation directions, and obnoxiously bottomed out on the up hill ascent. The sharp angle smashed the back end of the bumper and thus the frame, making a disturbingly loud metal-on-pavement scrape that the entire group of LA-ite men on the street corner having a cigarette not only witnessed but vocalized the shock we were all feeling. I think I broke it.

We stopped to check it out and low and behold, the frame was broken. There are 4 “legs” on all sides of the camper to lift and set down the camper off and on the truck. The back legs hung another 3 or 4 inches from the bumper giving us less than a foot of clearance from the ground. Yes the blond broke it, ya we fixed it. No need to bring this up in conversation.

Exhausted and rather shaken up; it was time for bed. The habit of Rob driving the long passes and myself navigating the cities was starting to seem like we needed to take that idea back to the drawing board. After playing nurse for a week, the water pump breaking, and now my luckily minor destruction of our vehicle,  I was done driving, and didn’t really want to address this problem immediately. So the frame was a little cracked, pretty cracked, but the break was still level and it didn’t seem to be the sole responsibility for any weight bearing by any means. We/I decided/demanded that this be addressed in the very near future and we just park and get to drinking.

Bad things come in threes and they sure do make the good things a euphoric experience. We found the BEST spot. Now, the idea of searching for free parking in a truck and camper whose length reaches nearly 24 feet and 12 feet tall in a city where the smart car just keeps getting smarter and if you have a loud rumbling diesel it better stay on the construction sight seemed a little daunting. The neighborhoods are up high and post-bottom out seemed a little unobtainable. We were graced with the entrance to a trailhead along the boarder of Echo Park where we found a meter maid on lunch duty who gave us the thumbs up on overnight parking.

The trail splintered around the park, along the dodger stadium, and up to some awesome views of the city. The houses were big and beautiful but modest enough to relate to and given tons of privacy from the outside world and our ghetto selves with lush foliage. We were tucked away enough and only a couple blocks from Sunset Blvd. We broke out the lawn chairs with no need for shame and treated our misfortunate fortune to a cooler-cup cocktail and beer.

The next day, Saturday the 27th, I got in touch with my college friend, Jessie, who has been killing it in the character design world. She’s one badass monster maker with a hankering for leather and bones. She made me a custom leg holster perfectly suited for my needs with a slouched beltline to accentuate the girlish figure. She told us about a brewery art walk she was showing some work at that day just past china town. It was only a 15 minute bike ride away and with “brewery” perking up Rob’s ears and “art walk” calling my name we chose to address the whole broken frame thing later and have a fun day instead. It was an awesome bike ride past the stadium and through Chinatown to the old abandoned macro-brewery on N Main St. The brewery was shut down for a while and had been turned into a small-town sized slew of stacked studios dubbed the Brewery Arts Complex. There were over 350 artist spaces of various sizes, some of which were also used as small apartments and gallery spaces. The art walk was an open-studio wonderland of creativity of all dimensions. Jessie gave us a vague address and on the hunt for her location we wandered through the maze of high art, interactive psychedelic games and displays, and wacky entrepreneurship before finding this sculpture of hers (to the left) in the display window on the top floor of building 8. We caught up with Jesse for a bit before she packed up her display and made plans to meet up the next evening.

Sunday was fixing day. We found an affordable all day parking against an alley behind the shops on Sunset blvd. Rob called the closed camper repair shop who informed him that to get it back in working order again with the man-power that would entail after some seriously invasive surgery would come to about $4,000… Well that wasn’t going to work and we didn’t really have any intention of getting it back in working order. In my defense we were already not so hot on the idea of these legs and the limitation they ensued on our mobility. We couldn’t really think of any time that we would absolutely need or generally want to take the camper off the truck. So we opted to remove the back legs all together and store them on top in case of emergency. After spending about 5 hours there bandaging the break using the ratchet straps we hook on our bikes to the back with the wench in the metal frame, we removed the legs, taking off an extra 100 lbs or so from the back end and used the brackets they were fixed on with the bandage the wound so to speak. Katy hunted for food and multitasked at the nearby laundry mat with a wash for the clothes and a guarded wash for us in the laundry mat bathroom sink. All was well again.

That night Jesse and 3 other lovely gents from my college-crew, Erik, Enrique, and, Ben came to our neighborhood and shared some cocktails and good stories. We wandered down to the bar for sake of saying we did it. We wandered through the park getting silly and pondering back on the good ‘ol days when we didn’t have to worry if our art was going to earn us an income, just what grade it was given.

On Monday we were thinking it was getting close to go-time. Katy had a board shipped to her from a shaper in Australia who sent it over to her as general delivery to LA. We drove towards the airport to the freight building where we had an easy enough time getting there and in no time we were off to meet up with miss Emily Haney. Katy spent the previous mulling over ideas on how to get down south to Orange County and then back to Mexico. She was thinking of taking the train down to San Clemente and we got in touch with Emily to see if she could pick her up. Another burst of great luck arose when we called her and she told us she was spending the weekend in LA helping her sister brew a healthy and delectable batch of kombucha and was going to be in West Hollywood selling their pro-biotic teas at the farmers market on Monday. Instead of Katy having to deal with public transportation in her still feeble state, Emily said she’d gladly give her a ride down to the OC.

We found some easy parking above the market and helped Katy pack while taking care of some much needed curbside leg shaving. We found Emily manning the kombucha booth solo while her sister headed back to the kitchen for a bit. There they were selling Ashley, Em’s sister’s brand of fermented tea, Better Booch. With scrumptious flavors and an adorably attractive label designed by the ever-talented Camilla Beroozian.

We mulled around the farmers market gathering fresh berries and slurping up free samples. It was sad to say goodbye to Katy but she was in good hands. We bid our loving farewells and tossed her items into Emily’s car then finagled our way onto Hollywood Blvd.

Finally Rob got to see the Hollywood sign tucked behind buildings on the mountainside. We took the opportunity to drive down the famous blvd and were so happy we did. The streets were hopping and the sun way shining, making our exit from LA perfect and awe-inspiring. A lady sitting on a bench waiting for the bus yelled out, “welcome to Hollywood!” Rob tried to make out names on the stars embedded in the pavement and we waved and Wonder Woman and Batman as we cruised down the palm-lined strip.

Malibu Beach

We found ourselves back on the 1 northbound after passing through the McMansions and star-studded abodes. It felt good to be back to the water. We were in search of a campground to boost our electrical charge and dump our septic. We came into Malibu, ogling at the beachside cottages and primo surf spots. We found a nice little trailer park that, while humble in its appearance, held true to the upper class nature of Malibu. We got some funny looks from the full-timers and after almost closing the deal the guy behind the counter asked about Penny’s breed, and regretfully informed us that both the Akita and German Shepherd mixes were on their “aggressive dogs” list and not allowed admittance into the park. Note to self, go with the Golden Retriever or Lab mix next time. I quickly chimed in with my service-dog speech and ran back to the camper to search for proof. I planned ahead and got a note from the doctor for his recommendation that I have a dog with my during this trip and that she become an “emotional support” animal to ward off any anxiety experienced by being on the road alone… Though I did have that note it sure didn’t look like it but the guy was lenient enough after seeing Penny’s bid smiling face through the window and took my word for it. We cooked some campfire food and did some laundry with our bucket-system and foldable drying rack and settled into some evening movies with unlimited charge. Penny showed no signs of aggressiveness.

We woke up bright-eyed and bushytailed on Tuesday morning with the camper to ourselves again and everything taken care of. We stayed until the last minute of our checkout time and jumped back onto the 1 northbound.