California Trip - Day 5 - O.C. Beaches / Weird Al

I got the sense that Crimson was a little disappointed by the mall viewing of the Hollywood sign so we made a quick detour to Griffith Park Observatory. The view was a little better and near the best you'll get without some hiking, which was the last thing Crimson wanted to do. The bonus was we had a nice view of the L.A. skyline as well. As usual, the skyline was covered in a sickening smog.

Next up was a visit to Rodeo Drive. Since Crimson had been warned before hand that the budget didn't permit any shopping, the visit was pretty quick. Just a nice walk up and down a couple of blocks.

Now it was time to return to the coast. I was determined to see most of it so we headed back to almost where we left off starting a Dana Point. We worked out way North with the intention of seeing many beaches. I quickly realized this would be impossible due to traffic and parking issues.

Our first stop was Laguna Beach but we had to park about a mile away and walk to it. Crimson got to watch some people playing volleyball and critique them and I got to snap a few pics.



Next up was Newport Beach and the Balboa Peninsula. Despite it being pretty late in the day it took a long time to get out to the tip and find some parking. But the time was worth it as we got to watch some people risk body surfing at the "Wedge". It wasn't exactly warm (about 70 degrees) so Crimson and I had little interest in getting in the water.



We skipped a couple of the beach stops I had planned as our time was running out. We got to our hotel in Long Beach with only 10 minutes to spare before we needed to head back South to Costa Mesa for a Weird Al Yankovich concert at the Pacific Amphitheater.

I was thoroughly impressed by the venue. It was quite bit big (I read 16,000) and was 90% full. That was a lot more people than I expected. With no opening act, Al's performance went on for 2 hours and 15 minutes. He did a bunch of quick costume changes while showing Al TV interviews on the big screen, including one with my favorite, Robert Plant.

His material covered a lot of his career and played most of the crowd favorites including My Bologna, Eat It, Fat, Yoda, Smells Like Nirvana, Amish Paradise, The Saga Begins, Couch Potato, White & Nerdy (With Crimson singing loudly), Canadian Idiot, Perform This Way (in huge peacock outfit), TMZ and Craigslist (loved his impression of Jim Morrison). It was a great performance and a nice end to a long day.