Just Because: Birds by the Long Beach Bike Path

I think these are swallows, and I think the nests are in progress rather than finished. They're under the extremely busy, extremely loud Long Beach Boulevard, and there are hundreds of them. They seem to like the scrubby area around the river and the bike path quite a lot:

The Great Carousel Hunt: Part the Fifth

No pictures of this one, unfortunately, because my camera batteries conked out, and it turned out that those were my spares.

Anyway, I went to the Long Beach Aquarium Monday (beautiful place, by the way), and afterward, when it had gotten cooler, I walked around the area for a little while. i decided to by the Pike, figuring that a place which had a Ferris Wheel outside just might also have a carousel. Sure enough, it did--tucked away and with not sign outside.

It had all sorts of nature scenes painted on it, and a group of brown and yellow horses. Lots of mirrors circling the area, giving a sort of infinite carousel effect.

I had time to admire because it took a while for someone to come. She was very pleasant when she did come, and, though she seemed surprised that I wanted to ride, did let me have a nice long gallop on the horses.

I thought the OC fair one was fast--this faster, more like a gallop. There was no music (there apparently is, sometimes as there was an organ), but the sound of the horses going up and down turned out to be remarkably like the sound of galloping, so that was quite all right.

This, by the way, is the only carousel I've ridden so far where the sign advised "extreme care" in getting on and off of the platform and warned that the management was not responsible for any grease or oil that got on the rider (Hmmm..maybe there is a reason the operator was surprised that I actually wanted to ride).

The Great Carousel Hunt, Part the Third

This was both disappointing and fun: Disappointing because out of date information had led me to believe that they still had the old Looff Carousel, and after reading about the great carvers in the last few days, I was pretty excited about seeing it.
It's not there any more, hasn't been for a while--the owner sent it back to San Francisco.

On the other hand, they still do have a carousel, and it is bright, shiny, and full of fun. There's plenty of gilding, bright paint, and exotic animals to ride.


Mostly, they are white horses, somewhat to the disappointment of my companion on this trip, a friend who favors black carousel horses, but there was also a gorgeous zebra (very tempting)and a spectacular blue and purple dragon/seahorse creature that I fell instantly in love with (I'll ride the zebra some other time, perhaps).


My friend found a white horse she thought pretty enough, and I took the seahorse/dragon and we were off!

Thus endeth Part the Third.