popnea, Author at a popnea blog

Chinatown Summer Nights

June 27, 2015 by popnea

KCRW are doing summer nights with DJ’s, live bands, beer gardens and food trucks once a month in Chinatown.

The Hollywood Bowl season is here. My first event was the Sound of Music sing-a-long. I used to watch this movie every Christmas, now I watch it every summer. I love everything about this movie! It was 50 years ago the movie came out this year, and the bowl was sold out, amazing!

Everyone lit up their phones as the Captain sang Edelweiss.

Two Harbors

June 21, 2015 by popnea

You always wake up super early when camping, it doesn’t matter how late you stay up at night. We had to problems with having our stuffed packed up by 10 am for the luggage pick up.

There was a 5k and a 10k in the morning. Most of us were lazy and just cheered our fellow campers on.

Chilling in the shade, waiting for the ferry to take us back home.

Camping at Two Harbors

June 20, 2015 by popnea

Nathan found an awesome deal for camping at the Catalina Island trough REI. A bunch of us signed up, super fun, and I’d never been to Two Harbors before!

Got to leave super early to get there in time for the ferry.

I love my friends, they know me well enough by now to leave me alone and shut the heck up on occasions like this, when we are on a boat. They just come to check on me every now and then to make sure I am still alive, which is highly appreciated.

The ferry ride was actually pretty smooth, I made it all the way over to the other side without being sick!

Since the trip was organized by REI, all we had to do was to show up pretty much, it was awesome! Super well organized, like we did whatever we wanted to do, but with guides if we wanted them!

It was a short hike from the ferry dock to the campsite, and our fear was that we had to carry all our gear, but the organizers had that taken care of with a truck, so we just had to bring ourselves!

The view from our camp, not bad!

I was dying to jump in the ocean, it’s such a tease to have it right there!
There was a bunch of stuff included in the trip, like snorkeling and kayaking. I did Stand Up Paddle Boarding for the first time, it was a lot easier than I though it would be, and more fun than surfing!

When we all had soaked up enough sun, we went on a short hike, I wanted to see the second harbor.

This view makes you wanna get a boat. But I’m not sure what I would do with one.

Catalina Island also need some rain, it’s very dry!

Found the second harbor!

The crew chilling before dinner.

REI had even arranged for s’mors, amazing!

Cabazon Dinosaurs

June 7, 2015 by popnea

We stopped by Cabazon Dinosaurs on the way home from Palm Springs. I didn’t even know this park existed. You had to pay a fee to actually get up close to most of the dinos, but we were happy to just hang outside for a bit.

Came back to LA in the early afternoon and I felt restless after sitting in a car for that long so I went to the range to hit a bucket of balls. It’s been a while, I should do that more often.

Palm Springs

June 6, 2015 by popnea

We did a girls getaway to Palm Springs. The first thing we saw as we turned off the freeway was a man in his mid 60’s walking on the side of the street in just his red speedos. I don’t think we could’ve gotten a better start on our weekend!

Our plan was to escape the city, hang by the pool, gossip and drink fancy drinks. I had my first ever Bloody Mary, it’s apparently time to grow up.

Baseball

May 31, 2015 by popnea

Made it to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play.

Started off the right way at a diner though.

The weather was more on our side today. No rain but still pretty cold.

Tired, cold and hungry after the game we came across this all American bar, they had fried pickles. Amazing!

Everyone said I had to go visit the Navy Pier, I’m not entirely sure why.

Chicago

May 30, 2015 by popnea

I’m trying to make it to a city in the US each year that I have not been to. This year I made it to Chicago. I’ve been wanting to go for a long time.

Was greeted by overcast and rain. Didn’t bother me so much though, we get plenty of sunshine in Los Angeles, so I was happy to see some rain.

Made it to Millennium Park and the bean. Everyone has to see the bean. No one knows why though.

The Chicago website says:
Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States.
The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect Chicago’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives. Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.