Long Beach Port Centennial Party

When we got a mailer put through our mailbox announcing the details of the centennial celebration for our very own Port of Long Beach, we learned that it would be free and everyone was invited to come out and visit and learn.

For some reason I was very excited. I saw that I had the particular Saturday off, and after talking with Corrie, we agreed to go and check it out. My enthusiasm, while surprising to her, was genuine, as the thought of the intersection of industrial aesthetic photo ops, the strength and prosperity of a non-sports related union, the ocean, and memories of Season 2 from The Wire must have imploded into a singularity in my brain.

The experience wasn't a let down, but it wasn't like a six-year-old's day at Disneyland. We had a good time, grabbed our free snow-cone and popcorn and squeeze bottles, looked at some awesome period photographs, and left an hour later to do other things on that particular Saturday.

Some pictures we took will appear in later installments, when the time is right for those tales to be told. But here are some pictures that help this tale.

This is the entrance to the bash, er, "bash". The Port, though, being the largest on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, is very proud about its multi-billion dollar efforts to get as sustainable as possible as fast as possible. Almost a hundred-and-fifty billion dollars worth of goods comes through this port every year, and that can finance some things.



The particular site for the party was a former docking yard, and the ground was concrete and uneven in places. They used old "cans" as walls for different exhibits, but the vast parking lot nature was enhanced with views like the following one, giving the feeling of a cut-rate county fair, but not even able to be housed in a meadow.



One cool exhibit was a line of parked beautifully restored period trucks. This next picture is the oldest, and the period license plate says "California Horseless Carriage".



I went up and checked out the dials, since you could, and I had to take a picture, since speed isn't one of them. You get voltage, temperature, and oil pressure. Obviously velocity wasn't a big consideration, especially taking into light the utility of the truck.



Now, my last picture for this post is a much more modern apparatus. If you look close to the left side, you can make me out standing next to wheels just as large. This is some kind of mobile crane. Norm might be able to give its name (I didn't look it up), but it didn't seem out of place, like the old-school trucks, Ferris wheel, carpet slides and free hot-dogs.