My Happy Place - Palos Verdes, as Promised.

Warning Signs

Eight months ago, I moved to the second-most populated metropolis in America - Los Angeles.  Since then, I've been plagued and threatened incessantly by the very thing I thought I'd escape by relocating here -  Nature.  Inauspicious nature.  WILDERNESS WANTS TO KILL ME, even in the big city.  Some examples include:

Shark's tooth found at Redondo Beach.  This didn't initially seem ominous - but then I blithely revealed my discovery to some locals.  They all seemed uneasy, and all claimed, "WOW.  I've lived here - 10 /15/ 20 - years, and I've never found one of those at any beach in SoCal!"  Oh great.  Do I go in the water?  Or do I float a sacrificial dummy with my likeness out there first? 

Snake in Palos Verdes - thankfully, this fellow was not of the poisonous / deadly variety, but again, associate reaction to this photo has ranged from, "I would fucking shit myself if I saw that," to, "RATTLESNAKES LIVE THERE TOO AND THEY HAVE THE ABILITY TO VAULT THEMSELVES AT YOU FROM 12 FEET AWAY.  You don't want a flying snake hitting you like an Amazonian blow dart, do you?!!?"

And, the kicker -

RIGHT IN MY OWN BACKYARD.  I think we can all agree - this squirrel has a ravenous, compulsory longing for human blood.  It just kept staring at me like that. What the...??  Squirrels are supposed to be hypersonic spazz rats with a volcanic glee for tree nuts and bird feed houses.  And when they do get mad or territorial for a brief moment, it always ends up on YouTube.  Because there is no fight in the entire animal kingdom more comical than a boxing squirrel death match.  Unless it includes the squirrel pictured above.  I don't think I could win a fight against that thing if you armed me with a sledgehammer and a can of mace.  

Palos Verdes Peninsula

This past weekend I made my way to the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
























More pictures to come, but notice the very upwards angle of this cliff. Naturally, I refused to venture too close to this rocky crag. Reasoning - I grew up in Pennsylvania. In PA, it is implicitly known that you've got a 32% chance of dying by way of A.) deer majestically leaping into your windshield, or B.) a giant slab of Appalachia coming loose and decimating you and your vehicle.

At least Pennsylvania warns its residents of this hazard with yellow reflective "FALLING ROCK" signs every 15 feet. California will caution you relentlessly over the perils of rollerblading, skateboarding, and amalgam dental fillings, but somehow menacingly large cliffs pose no imaginable threat.