The LBC

My wife and I just had a weekend getaway to Long Beach, California and it was awesome!  We had a wonderful time and I would recommend it to all of you. 

The only bad part was flying into and out of Long Beach International Airport...

If the driver's license division operated an airport, it would be just like the Long Beach Airport.  It's never a good sign when you have to deplane down the stairs onto the tarmac and then get herded along by guys with wand-looking flashlights. 

We took a taxi to our hotel, which was amazing.  It was called the Dolly Varden and was built in the 1920's and only has like 35 rooms.

Here I am, posing just up from the hotel...

We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed ouselves.  But, before we could relax we had to pick up some hairspray and cough drops from the Walgreen's.

"RiiiiCooooolaaaaahhh!!!"

Our first day there, we visited downtown Long Beach.

We saw the Long Beach Convention Center.

And we almost got a photo of me landing a double back hand-spring but the camera took the photo a second too late...

Belarus gives the American a 9.5 for his floor routine. "He did the whole thing with a book in his hand" said the Belarusian judge.

Long Beach has a vibrant pedestrian-friendly downtown shopping district.  Here I am, about to be sorely disappointed by the results of the 'trust fall' I was about to perform!

As it started to get dark, we started thinking about finding a place for dinner, but we were way down by the marina.

We decided to take the train downtown and find a hip place in L.A. for dinner.  We rode the metro into town.

We were like locals on the subway...

Downtown we went to a cool bodega.  Things got a little blurry after that.

But we had an uneventful ride back to Long Beach.  On a serious note, it was good to ride public transit to a popular restaraunt in Los Angeles on the September 11th weekend and just not worry about it.  You lose terrorists!

The next day we rented bikes.

We rode all over town and it was great.  We even rode out to see the Queen Mary, which is a very famous ship.

I even bought a new shirt at Ross.

So, yeah.  It was a pretty good vacation.  A wise man once said, "With so much drama in the LBC it's kind of hard being Snoop D-O-Double G."  But it wasn't hard for Steph and I.  We had a great time.

So, there's that.