Today, my friend, Phil, and I headed out to Venice Beach to check out the 4th Annual National Go-Topless Day march. The march was to \”protest unconstitutional topless gender discrimination.\” The idea being that it is not fair that men can go topless but women can not. To be honest, I agree with the cause but I foresee men being forced to cover up before women will be allowed to go bare. We shall see.
It was a beautiful summer day, we took the bikes. Unbelievable as it sounds [to anyone that has tried to park in Venice on a Sunday], we actually found free parking for each bike, within 25\’ of the boardwalk. As it turned out, the protest started two blocks from a restaurant we wanted to check out, The Venice Ale House. Well, Phil wanted to check out the restaurant, I wanted to check out the beer. They had plenty of different beers on tap and offer 4 and 6 beer flights. I will definitely be back. These photos are of some of the sights that are easily found on the Venice Beach boardwalk, all within two blocks.
These photos are from the Solvang Vintage Motorcycle Museum, located in Solvang, CA. Although I was aware that this museum existed, this was my first visit there. It was never convenient on prior visits. Their hours are set up around the fact that Solvang is a tourist town. As I recall the museum opened at 11 AM on Saturday and Sunday. I do not recall their weekday hours. Anyway, I am really glad I stopped by. I am pretty familiar with antique motorcycles and feel confident that I have at least heard of most makes and models, however, this collection had several models I was unfamiliar with. This includes Mars, Rudge and The James. All very cool bikes.
They say they switch the bikes out, so I guess I will have to stop by again and see what else they have picked up.
Last year, I introduced Tanya to Solvang, CA. Solvang is known as Denmark west due to its large Danish population. It is a quaint little town in the Santa Ynez Valley. It is a very nice ride or drive, either by car or motorcycle. Besides lots of touristy things, it is the home of my favorite winery, Sort This Out Cellars [STOC]. After a visit to STOC we found a nice hotel down the street to leave Buddy at, then we headed over to the Solvang Brewing Company. Solvang Brewing Company is fairly new and I guess we got there a week too early as they were not ready to release their own brews until the following weekend. Oh well, guess that gives me an excuse to go back there.
The other day, someone made a comment about a photo I had posted on Google+. It was of a cloud formation that I had seen in North Dakota or Montana. They informed me that the photo was of the newly named Asperatus variety. She sent me a link to a Youtube video and a website that is all about cloud appreciation. I was surprised that the clouds were something new because I saw them all across the country when I was following storms. I soon recognized that when I saw them, some very foul weather was to follow. I noticed them during my last journey across the northern part of the country and I discovered I could spot a storm coming before the National Weather Service.
These photos are of cloud formations from Arizona to Lake Michigan to Yellowstone National Park and everywhere in between.
Anyone that has followed my blog for a while has figured out that I have pretty much fallen for Utah. If they had an ocean I might consider living there. As Brett and I left Idaho I called Tanya to have her see what was coming up. I knew that if we veered too far off I-15 there was a great chance that I would not make it to LAX the following night. I had never followed I-15 past Salt Lake City, so I did not know what was in store for us.
As it turns out, the Great Salt Lake has about 10 islands with Antelope Island State Park being on the largest island. We did not have a lot of time to explore but I got enough of a visit to want to return. These photos are from Antelope Island State Park and the road south along I-15 to St. George.