The Long Beach Snooper
!
!
Ready or not we are off (as long as your eyes and brain can stand it....) to visit the wonders of LB, starting with some of the main attractions.
The first place the "Long Beach Snooper" is going to introduce you to will be our PRIDE and JOY. The attraction which gives Long Beach it's title as "The Queen City." NO, no no . . . . it's not because, as I understand it, due to Long Beach having the largest concentration of gay men and women of any Southern California City. (Could the city's title have contributed to this???). IT is that lovely black, white, and red (with touch's of rust) oversized tug boat, propped between two large rocks, taking up valuable shoreline and blocking the view of those beautiful off-shore drilling rigs, named the "Queen 'arry," (or something like that).
The cost to tour and spend the afternoon aboard, for a family of four, takes a weeks pay for the average working man or woman. (Oop! let's not forget the fiver that was laid out just to park your car). This doesn't include snacks. That will be at least another days pay. After you take the tour of the rusting old hulk, and browse the shops for several hours, the family will probably be getting a bit hungry. Should you decide have dinner at one of the fancy, high class restaurants, you have to either be one of the upper crust of society, or have one of the many plastic cards now available to the general public, which will give you and your family the privilege of dining along side the rich and wealthy (there are very few famous). BUT, do take into consideration that it will take at the least, a good year to pay the charged meal off.
Now that you have loaded up with unusual souvenirs like Tee shirts, banners, junk jewelry and maybe a refrigerator magnet, over filled your belly, and flattened the wallet, it is time to take leave of the "Proud Old Queen." As you cross the parking lot hoping that your car is still intact, just smile with pride that the bucks you just laid out may help toward paying the debt owed to the city.
A bit of added trivia --- the Queen just celebrated her 60th anniversary, AND for the first time since docked, she turned a profit of $400,000 this year (of course she's still in debt to the tune of 4 million bucks)and it does look like your bucks did help.
Well, that is it for this week, month, or whenever.
PS: To keep historical facts straight, LB has had the title of "Queen City" for many years before the Queen Mary was purchased and berthed here.
Keep checking back and there will be some new "snooping" ready to go. A hint as to where the Snooper might take you -- it's a place aeroplanes land. Then maybe it won't be, since there are so few flights in and out (and none of them majors, thanks to the City of Long Beach)! Gee, I'm giving it away. Yep, the Long Beach Airport. Up to about six years ago business men and visitors could easily fly into and out of Long Beach with three major, four regional airlines and two shuttles. But, thanks to the complaints of residents close by, who didn't live there when the airport was built, and for whatever crazy reasoning of the City Council, there were so many restrictions put on the the airlines, that one by one the majors dropped out, and the shuttles mentioned, were prop planes associated with two of the majors, so they are gone also. Now, when you have to come to LB, you have the inconvience of flying into LAX and either rent a car or lay out $20 plus for an airport shuttle.
How about a few points of interest that you can view? Here are two, whether you are interested or not.
Here is a shot of the Long Beach Municipal Courthouse.
Is it possible, they are trying to hide how ugly it is?
Did you know that you don't have to go to Egypt to see a pyramid? Just cruise over to Cal State Long Beach and check the one they imported. (Gee, look at the job they did on me -- changed their page. Now I am going to have to go take my own picture of it for you. Oh, well, you got to check out their pages).
Sites I will get you to eventually:
Shoreline Village
Fabulous Hotel Row on Ocean Boulevard (and a few rundown motels back a few blocks).
The fantastic Long Beach Mall (or the largest "white elephant" in town)
World reknowned Broadway (street, that is)
and what ever other trouble I can get into
Speaking about cars. . . . There seems to be a new fad going around. I think that it could be called -- "Guess Which Way I Am Turning." The rules to this game are not to use your turn-signal and let either the oncoming driver or the car behind you try to guess whether you are going to make a turn or go stright ahead! It is a really fun game to play, especially during morning and evening rush hour.
Be the first to introduce this game to your town.
Hey! kiddies, this past week I discovered another new road game. This one is a little more daring. The rules to this one go like this: Pull up to a red traffic light, have your turn signal on to make a left turn. When the light changes, gun your engine and start your turn and see how close the oncoming car can come to ramming your car. Especially fun if you are driving an uninsured clunker and the oncoming auto is a shiny late model.
This week alone I could have scored two broad sides, but my '92 Toyota truck is still kind of shiny, so I had to concede, slam on the breaks, throw a finger and a few choice phrases. (This actually is a daring thing to do around this city, you just might catch a bullet).
When I need to get away from this tired town I travel north to stay at a comfortable B & B in Portola, CA, about where you will really be out in GOD's Country, 50mi. NW of Reno (an hour drive I you feel you really have to have some action). The name of this quiet get-away is THE SILVER LADY BED AND BREAKFAST. Check out the page and give it a try.
Hit on the bird's beak and do a Yahoo search!
