Venice Beach at Halloween

Today Teresa combined her love of children, tractors and fun by driving her tractor to school and handing out treats to students as they arrived. She braided her long hair in pigtails and wore a bonnet to complete her country farm-girl look. She had to drive the tractor a couple of miles on the main roads to get it to the school. On any other day this would have been news, but it's Halloween today so this is just part of the day.

Randy and I had an urge to see what Venice Beach looked like on Halloween, so mid-morning we picked up Aunt Jean and drove to Venice Beach. For awhile we watched kids (and a few older folks) skateboarding at the big Skateboard Park on the beach. The concrete structure has curved banks, handrails and short flights of steps - everything skaters love to play on. There were a lot of falls and trips but most people managed to avoid hitting the pavement. 

Most of the structures on the beach have been spray painted, aka tagged, including the trees. I don't know what this thing is but I would not hesitate to call whoever did it, an artist.

We walked through the sand a bit, then headed back to the boardwalk. Surprisingly we didn't see any street performers - they must have been waiting until the evening. There were a long line of vendors, though. "Vendors" is a loose term here; some were selling hand-painted pictures or dream-catchers, but several were just dressed oddly and asking for $1 per photo. I paid my dollar to take a pic of Lisa, the "Live Dead Dog". She was laid out on her back, wearing sunglasses and a bikini with money stuffed in it, and not moving a muscle until I gave her a little belly rub.

Some guys just had a hand-written sign asking for  "Change for Weed" or "Money to buy Weed". Well, at least they're honest! Medical Marijuana is very popular here and there are lots of "Green Doctor" offices offering a quick medical exam for $40. Somehow I am sure every exam results in a prescription.

The street art wasn't too special today, but several of the buildings have really beautiful murals on their sides.  

By then it was already 1pm so we shared an order of nachos for lunch, then hit the road back to Riverside. It's a 60 mile trip and we had been warned not to wait until 3 pm or it would take 3 hours to get home. We left a few minutes after 2 pm and it took four hours! Four hours. The longest and slowest stretch was on 91. Five to six lanes the whole way, and we still moved at a crawl.

But Aunt Jean knew how to cheer us up - at the end of the trip she took us to Baskin Robbins where we all had ice cream for dinner! As a bonus, the staff were dressed up for Halloween.