Santa Monica, July 25, 2010
There are other photos that Kathy, Dianna and Victoria took, but I don't
want to bust their bubble by posting their stuff first.  Once they have posted
their pictures, I might add on some more.  For now, here are mine:

Saw this guy on the way.  He made me smile.  Santa Monica needs the nick name of "City of
thousands of ethnically diverse people who really, really love their animals."

We got to the pier early, around 9:30 am.  All of the vendors and street performers were just
getting set up for the day.  Nothing was really open yet, so we walked on up the hill to the
3rd Street Prominade.

An interesting building next to the pier.  There is a roller coaster and a ferris wheel that goes out
over the ocean.

A view of the pier from the overpass.

A bird on a canon.

Odd little thing.

This was an interesting project called "Arlington West."  They worked on this most of the day.
It is a one for one accounting, crosses to people, of the number of troops killed in Afghanistan
that week.

The beach before everyone got there.

A trapeeze school on the pier.

"I wish I was... not so big."

Delena going for a road trip with her monkey.

O...K...

The pier all empty.  That van was totally filled with cotton candy.

The actual pier itself at the end.  We were sitting on bleachers where you could
look out over the water, watch the sailboats, people watch, listen to music.  Very nice.

Kathy's first tranny.  Not sure if this was a woman becoming a man
or a man becoming a woman, but this person was much more
graceful than I will ever be.

This guy mostly sang in Spanish and was pretty good.  Note the little dog on the table
who sat patiently for hours and hours.  I think the dog had to pee.

He was cute, but I don't think he needed a vet.

Apparently, someone was giving out penis balloons and I missed it.

Muscles were everywhere

Check out the guy in the kilt with long white socks.

I don't think Disney knows about this.

The parking lot began to fill up fast.

Going down onto the pier.

"Woodstock," so sang quite nicely and sounded like Wavy Gravy.

This bright red person accosted Delena and my friend, Victoria and shoved swords in their
hands and demanded a photo be taken.  She then got really aggressively bitchy about us giving
her a donation for the photo.

Delena making her "Arrrgh" face as The Red Pirate Roberts started yammering about her "small donation."

Naked guy with a big snake.  Nope, I did not visit.  The unicycle in that
situation made my my mind boggle.

Birds.  Yeah.

A really cool tree

This is one of my favorite photos ever.  Love how the homeless guy is just peering through the tree.
That's my friend, Kathy, in the white shirt further back.  Our shirts said, "Free Hugs" and we
collected several.

Victoria in front of Ron Teegaurden's Dragon Herbs where we will go in and see cool stuff.
Here we go.

Very big Buddha.

Very cool statue.

Want!  This was something like 10-12 feet tall.  It will go well in my family room.

Little dragony dogs.

Beside these ultra cool wooden chairs (also big).

Another cool statue.

Lots of topiary dinosaurs.  Who knew?

Kathy and I grab one of our many hugs.  This one was from Eric, the sort of concierge of
Barnes & Noble.

A dog with shoes.  Told you these people love their animals.

More green dinosaurs, these not vomiting water.

Beautiful purple bloom trees.

A lovely (large!) fountain outside a place called "Leaf and Petal"

Catwoman in McDonalds, gettin her cowfee own.

Mmmmmm.  Sooo gooood.  It was a gourmet cupcake shop.  Mine is the pink one:  vanilla/vanilla.
It had that heavy, homemade taste and was so incredibly yummy.

http://yummycupcakes.com/

As we were leaving, Victoria pointed out that the overpass we'd been trekking all day was
directly over the end of Venice Beach Boardwalk.  I would have enjoyed that so much more.
I'm just not at all a Victoria's Secret/Forever 21 girl.  I'm more of a "find cool stuff to look at"
girl.  "The Overlook Hotel?"  "Psychic Readings by Doreena?"  How can I lose?  Maybe next time.

The pier at night.  If you look closely, you can see tons and tons and tons of people there.
This was right before the car picked us up and the driver left while Kathy was still getting in.
Fun times.