The Only Place in California Where it Felt Like Christmas
Alternate Title #1:
The Desert Eats Pieces of Shit Like Vegas for Breakfast
12/25/11:
@The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
3rd Street Promenade; Santa Monica
No marine layer when i arrived here on Christmas Eve.
Highs in the 70’s....
The sun felt great,
but life in the shade seemed at least 15 degrees cooler....
Swear to god, on the entire flight from Milwaukee to Los Angeles,
not a cloud in the sky....
Not one!....
(A Christmas miracle!)
After departing Billy Mitchell, I traced I-94 West to Madison from my window seat...
We blew past the isthmus in about 15 minutes.
Beautiful.
I also noticed a clearly defined snow line....
The ground north of I-94 reflecting a hazy shade of white....
The ground south holding on to its drab, winter-brown/green.
The lack of snow in Milwaukee this year is fine by me....
To hell with a white Christmas!
(You see, excessive snow in December makes for a VERY LONG winter.)
The rest of the flight went by quickly, despite some minor adversity.
Yes, there was a three-year-old constantly kicking my seat from behind.
Yes, the three-year-old had a one-year-old brother....
Yes, they were crying at the same time for the last hour of the flight.
No, this didn’t bother me...
The woman sitting in front of me with noticeable dandruff flakes?
Now THAT bothered me for some reason........
What a shame.
As long as those weren’t MY babies crying....
“You know what i’m saying?”
(You know what i’m saying.)
Do I have to change their diapers?....Nope.
Am i responsible for cooling their jets?....Nope.
As a public school teacher,
my tolerance level for anything a child does on an airplane is very high.
Cry away, child....Kick that seat....
Ain’t gonna bother me, because i’m on vacation.
The $13.00 charge for the internet?
That bothered me the most....
What a farce!
My Netflix movie (PJ 20) cut out every ten minutes,
forcing a reload...
(With a SUPER SLOW connection, each reload took another ten minutes.)
Once i accepted the rules of engagement,
I adjusted my attitude toward the whole thing....
The reloads gave me a fine excuse to gaze out the window.
I waited patiently for the Rockies to pop up, seemingly out of nowhere.
I soaked in the color contrast of the winter-bleached canyons...
Snow dusting over the burnt reds and oranges
with abstract dashes of grey and white.....
(words do me no justice here.)
I marveled at the enormity of Las Vegas at first,
but then marveled at how quickly the desert swallows Vegas whole.
The desert eats pieces of shit like Vegas for breakfast.
I also scanned the airspace around Vegas....
i expected to see dozens of other airplanes approaching and departing,
but i only witnessed one.
I did notice two separate planes cross our flightpath earlier on the journey.
They always catch my eye, and grab my attention...
I get a kick out of seeing the dirty exhaust trails (like giant, flying busses),
and a frame of reference for how fast we’re traveling.
I also think about both sets of pilots,
reading the newspaper
and eating a bagel at the same time....
(Everyone’s traveling 400 miles per hour on autopilot...)
Alternate Title #2:
Everyone’s Traveling 400 miles per hour on Autopilot
And then there’s the gradual descent into Southern California.....
Desert, mountains, and then sprawl!
Its endless expanses beautiful to me.........
12 million souls in the greater Los Angeles area alone....
22 million in the entire Southern California megaregion.
When i fly over its vastness,
i am awestruck at how well these city machines operate...
(relatively speaking.....)
When you take into consideration the actual number of inhabitants,
it’s a minor miracle that more shit doesn’t go wrong on a daily basis.
The vast, vast majority of people here enjoy consistent, safe shelter,
easy access to food/
water/
electricity,
and the luxury of modern indoor plumbing units.
There are very few major malfunctions/
car accidents/
crimes.....
Very few earthquakes....
The vast majority of people travel through their daily lives unscathed....
Millions of basic needs satisfied.
Daily.
Most of the 22 million people here follow the laws,
stop at red lights,
and yield appropriately in a gorgeous, well-choreographed dance.
I then think about what would happen if they were blessed
with three to four inches of snow....
( a routine Wisconsin snowfall).
(Ha. Ha. Ha.)
Good luck.
From a few thousand feet i notice more.........
The passing rows of a thousand neighborhoods,
a myriad of houses neatly packed into symmetrical street grids,
with scatterings of commercial real-estate and freeway pipelines,
golf courses and cemeteries,
parking lots and football fields.
This repeats for about 20 minutes before we land.
Milwaukee’s street grids last for about five minutes as you fly in or out of the city.....
You can clearly see where the city sprawl ends (especially at night),
and where the farmland begins.
Not here....
You can clearly see the mountains, and where the ocean begins.
Everything else is wrapped in the smoggy blur of a seemingly endless metropolis.
Wheels touch down.......
Reverse thrust.
Welcome to Los Angeles.
My entire family is vacationing out here this Christmas....
My younger brother and his wife just delivered their first baby...
Laguna Niguel will be the sight of the Baptism.
After initially checking in with the family back at the Cal Mar Hotel,
I decided to walk three blocks west to the Pacific Ocean to catch the sunset.
I scored a park bench on a bluff overlooking Santa Monica’s massive beach....
I noticed three different groups of people playing volleyball,
and hundreds of folks running,
walking,
skateboarding,
and riding their bicycles.
To my right, the hills of Malibu,
and to my left, a smog layer developing above Santa Monica’s spinning ferris wheel.
This is what Christmas Eve looks like in California....
Tis’ the season to do whatever you would normally do on a beautiful, sun drenched day.
This certainly didn’t look like Christmas, or feel like Christmas to me.
You see, i was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin....
Nobody is riding their fucking bike for pleasure,
or setting up an outdoor volleyball match on Christmas Eve.....
In Wisconsin, we bunker down.....
We gather inside to watch the Green Bay Packers....
We gather inside to eat, drink, and be merry....
I enjoyed watching the sun set over the Pacific....
Very colorful/peaceful.
I took about two dozen pictures,
and walked back to the hotel to be with my family;
the only place in California where it felt like Christmas.
Alternate Title # 3
Christmas in California 2011: Best Christmas Ever!
Dedicated to every member of my family, with gratitude and love....
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