Taking on New Adventures

I am a fan of California and have always been intrigued by the lifestyle many people enjoy there. So when we decided to do a couple of days in Las Vegas prior to a conference Chuck had to attend, we knew we wanted to try and manage a day or so in the LA area before Vegas.

We took a direct flight to LAX on Friday night and stayed at a hotel near the airport. It was easy thanks to the hotel shuttle and while we knew we’d need to Lyft to the places we wanted to go on Saturday, our one full day there, decided that the airport hotel was best due to our flight times.

We kicked off the morning with a short walk to a local breakfast joint near the hotel. The place reminded me of a New York bodega, in a small way, and we grabbed some good, cheap breakfast. Then we headed back to the hotel to start to get ready and plan out our day.

As many times as he’s been to the LA area for work, Chuck had never really been to the beach areas, outside of Redondo Beach. So I made the decision to take him to the Santa Monica Pier. It had been about 15 years since I had been there, and I was looking forward to walking around and people-watching. While cool, the sun was out and I knew we would have a good time and get in some much needed steps and vitamin D.

Late morning, we hopped a Lyft and made our way to the pier. Even on a Saturday morning, it took nearly 30 minutes to get there, thanks to the traffic. We did enjoy looking at everything along the way, including Marina del Ray in the distance.

After walking along the pier and watching some people fish, we hit the boardwalk and started walking towards Venice Beach. I knew we would run into a few options for lunch and a drink. Plus, I wanted Chuck to check out the various hotels and homes along the way.

We hit up the Venice Ale House for a few beers and some food. I found it doing a search for beer bars on Google and I’m so glad I did. Chuck loved the beer options, I enjoyed the poke bowl and we both loved sitting along the boardwalk to watch the beach and the people enjoying it.

Afterwards, we did the quick walk to the canals just to see them and then grabbed a Lyft back to the hotel for a nap. Then we grabbed another ride to Hermosa Beach to start our late afternoon and evening. We had some ideas of bars and restaurants we wanted to hop into from a trip we took a year and a half ago to the area.

Since I had been there before, didn’t do any research on what was going on that weekend. We did not expect the festival and fair going on in the area but really enjoyed walking through it and checking out the various booths. There were so many local vendors and more dog-related vendors than I think I’d ever seen at any local festival! As cool as the festival was, it also meant that the places we wanted to try out were more crowded than normal. So we decided to walk down the Strand towards the pier at Redondo Beach.

Looking at the houses along the Strand is always interesting and we stopped and watched a few of the volleyball games going on along the beach. The sun was starting to set and we were getting hungry so we decided to go to R10 Social House for some dinner. Although we had eaten here before, we knew the food would be good and we’d enjoy ourselves. Bonus that we got to see some sea lions playing in the marina during our dinner.

Afterwards, we hit Chuck’s favorite bar, Naja’s Place. They have so many beers available and the crowd is always a vibe. Once the sun set, we decided to head back to the hotel and get ready for our early am Sunday flight to Vegas.

While busy, this was the perfect day to spend in the LA area. Next trip, we definitely have some other areas we want to go to and explore.