05/23/2011 - LB Bike Path to the Aquarium

Hello Friends, family & other readers,

Today is May 28 and I had plans to do a leisurely day hike through about 8 miles of ranches in Malibu today but it seems I let my sinus drip turn into a bronchial infection and thought it would be better to stay in today to recover.  Yet on the practice of sharing some of the beautiful sights there are to see in my local So Cal area I have some nice shots of what I affectionately consider my "back yard".  The section of the path I show below is a short & flat stretch of about 2 miles.

It was last week, Monday the 23th, during the peak of my sinus drip (before it became the mucous chest bath it is now), I took a shoreline stroll from my home to the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific.   Not being in a house I don't have the traditional back yard with a fence and a lawn, but instead when I walk out my back door if I continue that direction I have one short block to the beach.  So I do have a back yard, and what a hell of a back yard it is! 
You will see in the pictures below the beach access in my area of the beach community.  Along the beach path (the 'bike path', the 'boardwalk', the 'jogging path', whatever an individual wants to call it) there are many landmarks that can be seen in the background, or even in the focus for that matter.  Among those landmarks are the oil islands so famous in the Long Beach waters.  Also you will see the Queen Mary, the dome (which used to house the Spruce Goose), the convention center (a giant Wyland painted circular mural that can't be missed), the Rainbow Harbor lighthouse at Rainbow Harbor/Shoreline Village.  Somewhere in this recreation complex is the carousal from the original Pike from the 50's.  
You may recognise some of the scenery from television & cable shows that are supposed to be set in Miami .

The Long Beach oil islands are the THUMS islands, built in the 1960's to conceal oil drilling platforms just off the LB coast.  They are decorated to look like tropical resorts with banana trees, waterfalls and colored lights that really 'pop' after dark.  On a nice summer evening the view from our shores with the brightly-lit islands are a real treat.  I have borrowed a picture from online of the islands at night to share with you since none of my pictures were during the evening.

So come with me on a walking tour from my back door to the west corner of my back yard...

The photo above was merged from 3 seperate photos because I wanted a larger panoramic view of the island and I was too close to be able to get it on a single shot.

I must give credit to the photo above because it is not mine.  I believe it would be credited to "Energy Tomorrow" but I may be wrong.  I borrowed it from online to show the comparison of day & evening for the same island.  That is the only photo on my blog that was not shot by myself.

So, on June 16th I was walking home from the Catalina Express Terminals and took a couple night time pictures of a couple of sites shown in the above pictures... the spaceship-looking thing and the lighthouse.