Malibu has long been a mythical place to me. It is mentioned in songs, it evokes memories of old surfer movies from the 1950s, it is where I know many celebrities and sports stars currently live, and I know from studying its geography it is close to LA, but still a good drive, thus offering relative access, but far enough away to be its own world. To get to it one is treated to a stunning drive on the PCH with the Santa Monica Mountains to one side and the vastness of the Pacific Ocean on the other.
Read MoreOne quickly discovers walking around Venice Beach (I did nearly 8 miles of walking in one day!) that it is a city of many murals. Some can take up the entire side of a 3-story building, like in the above, and are very public and visible. That would seem to make the most sense to put a mural where many people can see it.
Read MoreKiki and I suddenly left Florida one Saturday night in early November. I had long been wanting to do it, but with such things sometimes they just happen all of a sudden due to the sudden rising of circumstances. We did have a destination though when setting out -- Iowa. To get there it brought us through a few U.S. landmarks that I had never been to before. One of them was Gateway Arch in St. Louis. This will be the first post in a series called Westward Bound.
Read MoreKiki and I took a weekend trip over to the West Palm Beach area of Florida to check out a dog beach near Juno. The night before we happened to come across a scenic ocean park that lead to a pier. Though this is officially the Lake Worth Pier, it is most know for Benny's on the Beach restaurant. I liked how this pier retains the classic look of old Florida from the 1960s. It suits the beach scene well better than modern looking piers and structure on piers.
Read MoreThese fireworks were not the first flashes of light in the skies over Cape Coral on 4th of July 2016 evening. Those were from the lightning sparking horizontally through the clouds. Still, Red White & Boom 2016 started sharply at 9:30pm with only a very light sprinkle. Toward the end the rain did start coming down a little harder and you can see the water droplets that got on my camera lens in the lower right corners of the two photos below.
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