On my long walks, after threading through the throngs of tourists on the boardwalk, I keep going, heading north, paralleling the winding bike path, up into Santa Monica, to the California Incline, and then back, down the hill toward the Santa Monica Pier, sun glinting off the ocean, the whole world spreading out wide and wonderous.
The Venice Boardwalk on a weekend afternoon.
I used to avoid walking down the boardwalk at all costs. The bumbling tourists and pesky salesmen, the guys trying to get you to listen to their rap cds, the freakshows and the bums.
Something changed last year though and the boardwalk became one of my favorite places in Venice. I often take long walks straight down the center of it, can't seem to get enough of the folding table psychics, the mid-Westerners gawking at the Fed-Sex shirts, the drum-circle kids and the winos.
Humanity, at its most obvious.
I never tire of the view from my little deck, the late afternoon sun glinting off the palm fronds and the stucco across the canals.
Taken from a vista in Elysian Park in Silver Lake while on a hike with my friend Abby and her new son Owen.
Taken from the shores of Venice Beach on my regular Thursday walk with Timbre. Sunsets tend to be the most beautiful in the winter. It was cold that day, windy.
A shot of the canals in the early evening mist, one of my favorite times to go for a walk. It seems that everything is breathing, the jasmine blossoms and honeysuckle, ducks puffed against the chill, bridges arching into the evening, another turn, your breath warm and dissipating.