Day 6- Fourth Of July

We started the 4th of July off at Manhattan Beach. It was not the dead beach that it was when we came earlier in the week. There were hundreds of young adults in red, white and blue swimsuits. It was fun seeing everyone's patriotism almost everyone was dressed for the for the 4th of July. 

We passed this Buddah on the walk to the beach. Rick has sent me on a mission to find this exact one for his office.

 So last year while catching star fish, the ocean tore me up. This year, it got a little rough with me again. Rick thought it was so funny, he made me take a picture. Whatever.

Poor Teekie walking around with a chronic case of plumbers butt.

 Russell chillaxing.

 I hate it when people take pictures of their feet and then post them on Facebook or Instagram or wherever, but Brooke made me take a picture of our feet because we had red white and blue toes. So if you have an aversion to feet, avert your eyes...

 Jade got fried.

 Any time T.K. sees something little, he thinks it is his. We saw this little car and he said, "Ohh it's my car, Mom."

At the beach, I did not fit in; blue, white and orange? What was I thinking?

This beach was not as fun for Teek as Venice because he couldn't play in the water. When the waves come to the shore they are brutal and there is an insane amount of crushed shell you have to walk through to get to good water.  The rest of us had fun playing in the water, but he only likes to stay on shore and it was not the calm shore the Venice was.

Russell found $20 on the walk home, just laying on the road. Lucky duck.

Rick and I Google'd Diners, Drive In's and Dives In the area that we were staying in and after leaving the beach we decided to hit one of the places we had read about. This place is seriously the tiniest little shack and it was kind of in a bad area. We were right near Compton and you could tell. Rick was definitely having second thoughts until we walked around to the front and saw the huge line of people waiting for food. As we talked to everyone in line and heard their rave reviews we decided we had probably made a good choice. I really loved it. The best BBQ sauce I have ever had. Most BBQ sauce is so heavy on the BBQ flavor you can't taste the tomato but this had a rich tomato flavor that was so good.

After eating we went to the hotel to shower and then headed out to see some fireworks. Waiting at the bus stop.

Yes, those are hotel blankets I am bringing with me to sit on.

 

Brookie, laying on my legs watching the fireworks.

Waiting for the bus to come pick us back up after the fireworks. There were so many people waiting for the bus that Rick went into instant panic mode. He was like, " At this rate, it will be 2:00 a.m. before we make it home." "Everybody stay right by me and when you see the bus coming, follow me, fast." After the first bus came and went, with people pushing their way to the front. It didn't even make a dent in the people that were still waiting, and Rick's anxiety level rose...

 When the second bus came we all rushed to the front, everyone made it in fast except me, I was the last one in our family on the bus and they were worried I wasn't going to get in, but this bus driver was a little smarter than the first and he didn't want to make 6 more trips back and forth that night so he let us stuff ourselves in the bus till we were packed in like sardines. I tried to get a good picture of how many of us there were on this bus but this picture doesn't do it justice. I think we crammed over 100 people in one bus. See me in the corner? :)

A picture of the lobby/breakfast/ managers hour, area in our hotel.

 Good bye Cali. See you next year.