Ramblin Stoweaway: The Ocean Beach (Otherwise referred to as "OB") scene

Our Hotel

Hello Readers from the Courtyard of the lovely OB Hotel!

As promised I wanted to try to give you a little of the "flavor" of Eric and Blair's "Hometown" here in San Diego. They live in a section called Ocean beach (OB for short) about 4 blocks from our hotel.

OB is an interesting place. Some might call it "Eclectic" others trendy, still others "seedy". Truth is it is all three. There are sections of Multi-Million Dollar homes, sections of cute bungalows and apartments (Eric and Blair's place for example), and sections of...well let's just say Phi Delt Ocean City Dives. All three have one thing in common, lots of vagabonds. I use that term in lieu of "homeless" because I'm not sure which is which.

No matter which section you are in you will see at some point people going through trash bins and carrying their belongings with them. Here at the beach they are interspersed with people surfing, people sunbathing etc. I am reluctant to classifying all as homeless because many seem to be young people just "camping" on the beach. The prime example today are the "Germanic Vagabonds I photoed under the pier on our walk this morning. As My Faithful and Obedient Companion checked them out one was reading a German newspaper (written in German). He and his friends had obviously slept under the pier, one was chatting on a cell phone...in German. So I am very hesitant to claim the have suffered from the US economic downturn as the reason they are there! Blair claims that she sees many of these vagabonds using cell phones.

Last night we could here some wild partying from the bars near our hotel, until vary late at night. In the morning My Faithful and Obedient Companion and I discussed the "Atmosphere" of downtown OB. I said it was kind of like a cross between Wildwood and Longport , NJ. Barbara felt it was closer to a cross between Wildwood and New Orleans. Her description was right on. It certainly seemed like we were at the Royal Sonesta Hotel last night! A final observation on what OB is like, many of the local residents are young people who like to surf, skateboard and party, others are aging baby boomers who like to surf and skateboard and party. A large number of both like tatoos. I guess in that sense it is a little Stowe, except we use skis and snowboards. Oh and since we dress for winter who knows about the tatoos?

This morning we had breakfast at a place across the street from our Hotel. We were discussing the pro's and cons of living in OB with Eric and Blair. Blair was saying she cannot wait to move as she is tired of being approached by vagabonds. Eric said he loved OB (surfing, the local nightlife etc.) and that she was exaggerating the problem. Then a classic event occurred within a couple of minutes (like my Park Ranger story in Zion). We were seated on a terrace outside and a nice young man approached us from the street and shoved one of those American Sign language cards in our faces obviously asking for some coin in return (Bernie Beury if you are reading this please no offense intended). We had no problem waving them off, but we saw two people exchange some paper money for cards in the tables near us. Eric then said "well maybe your right Blair". Score that one Blair one Eric Zero!

I wanted to post some additional pictures of local lore, however for some reason the blog is stopping me at six. Rather than fool around in an effort to show you some local surfers, guitar players on the beach and a man going through a trash bin I will leave that to your imagination. If you want to see views the Hotel has a webcam which can be viewed at Current View from OB Hotel Enjoy and until tomorrow

Adieu