Hell of a title, no?
I struggled with whether I should post these photos. In many ways, these felt exploitative.
For my father's 50th birthday, we booked a 3-day cruise from Long Beach to Ensenada in June 2009. Afterward, we spent a couple days in LA.
For my entire family, the highlight of this trip was seeing a taping of
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, which should give you an idea of what we thought of the cruise experience.
If you've never been, think of the worst elements of Vegas (drunks, white trash, pasty Midwesterners like yours truly) all crammed on one vessel for three days.
To my surprise, the family wanted to check out Ensenada rather than go to Senor Frogs or whatever dive bars and/or other tourist traps people go to when they're in port. We had a fantastic tour guide who took us through the city as well as up the coast.
Maestro:
• Video Link
Long Beach, from a slightly different angle
The Queen Mary
Junk!?
Industry!
Farewell, Long Beach (for now)
Onward, to Mexico!
June Gloom was present the entire day we were in Ensenada
Our first stop was the Civic Center
I can't for the life of me remember our tour guide's name, but she was very good
Civic Center plaza
After the Civic Center, we took a bus up the coast. Here's a couple of photos I took as we drove through town
Farther up the coast
We stopped at a little cafe about twenty miles north of town
My OCD went into overdrive trying to figure out a pattern to the mosaic stairs
The entire time we were at the cafe, the guys on the beach were unable to get that aircraft off the ground
Go figure, I like cloudy weather more than I do sunshine
We stopped at a lookout point on the way back to town
According to our tour guide, people would drive their cars off a nearby cliff and collect the insurance money, claiming their cars were stolen
Keep in mind we took this trip right after the Swine Flu scare, which had seriously hurt the Mexican tourism economy
Now, this is where I start questioning the ethics of how these photos were taken. I didn't think much of it at the time: When my family and I went back on the ship, I decided to go out and take some "skyline" shots of Ensenada.
I may be making this into a bigger deal than it really is, but given the amount of poverty seen on the trip through town, the more I think about it, something felt wrong/hypocritical about taking photos of the city from the relative luxury of an ocean liner.
Yet here I am posting these anyways?
The next couple of shots were taken the next day
Yes, they're exactly what you think they are: Pretentious Asshole Shots
Back in Long Beach
And heading back to Arizona...
So thanks for taking a look (and putting up with my hyperbolic self-loathing/bullshit). Sorry I didn't get the latest installment of the "Better Late Than Never" series up sooner, but I've been busy changing jobs and dealing with other crap the last few months.
Next up, we skip forward a bit to February 2011 in my old stomping grounds around the City of Orange and Chapman University