9. After the Finish Line

I have just enough knowledge about Long Beach to feel like I wouldn't get lost, but not enough to judge how far or how close I parked to the Finish Line for the Long Beach Marathon.  Turns out I could have parked so much closer.  Yet, it was a great opportunity for me to site see film on my way back.

I see Long Beach being one of those places that you fly into.  Long Beach Airport is the bomb.  Not literally a bomb, but it is fast and furious.  Jet Blue flies into Long Beach Airport.  There are only a few gates.  The planes still have those stair things for boarding and unloading.  It's a trip.  I love flying in and out of this airport.

You take some form of mass transit or cab or whatever to your hotel in the Ocean Boulevard/Shoreline Drive area.  Then you spend a long weekend or a week walking here or renting a bike and biking there or hopping on the green line and riding it to downtown L.A. and any or all points in between.  Long Beach is beautiful, big city-esque and fairly clean.  More about that later.

You'll see in my video a quick view of all the people and goings-on around the finish line area of the marathon.  Also, the line up of porta potties.  I wonder if there is some sort of math formula for figuring out how many an event should have on hand?

Then I followed the throng of people along Shoreline Drive passing the Rainbow Lagoon Park, which brought me to one of my own personal favorite areas, the corner where you can see Famous Dave's.

I always get a bit excited when I find something I knew and loved when I lived in Minneapolis somewhere in SoCal like Famous Dave's.  My still all time favorite Famous Dave's is the Lake Calhoun one in Minnepolis, but this one still has their great tasting food.  Yum!

This is also the corner for the Merry-go-Round, the Convention Center and the shops where Borders Books is.  I love a great book store.

Then I just kept walking up Pine Street until I reached 4th.  Took a left and the rest as they say, "is history".

Okay, here's my blurb on litter.  There are places you go in SoCal where you just know it is hard to find a spec of litter like Disneyland.  It's also something you notice about The Grove, which is the shopping mecca I wrote my first CaliforniVacation: SoCal Style blog from and about.  More often than not, though, you will notice litter in SoCal.  And I find it sad.

It makes me wonder about people who litter.  Do they litter in their own home?  Okay, and just to make it a bit more emotional, let's not call it litter.  It's trash.  TRASH!  TRASH with all the disdain you can put in it.

Do they trash their own home?  More importantly, if you are a guest in someone's home do you trash their home?  Why would tourists trash SoCal?  How hard is it to keep it in your car until you get home and place it in your normal garbage?  It irks me.  And yet, I don't know what the answer is.

Long Beach seems to have found one.  Click here to see a brochure about something they started in 2007; Long Beach, We Like It Litter Free.  Now truth is that sadly I may not have noticed how little litter they did seem to have around the areas I walked without all the banners Long Beach has up around the city and in many different languages.  What I do feel I would have noticed is if there was a lot more litter, though.

Whenever I go somewhere, I love to go with an open mind and be delighted about what I will find.  There are many ways I feel my trip to Long Beach was a blessing and their solution to litter is one of them.  I applaud this city and its efforts to remind those who visit to please cooperate with their desire to keep Long Beach as naturally beautiful as it is.

And even though I haven't expressed it for a while, thank you to all of you who read any of my blogs.  I appreciate it very much...even more than I appreciate those who don't litter.  And now you know how I feel about that.  Thank you.