Last night Ben and I decided to drive down to Ventura for dinner, and also to catch a street event they had going because of the Ultimate Boarder contest. They closed off some of the streets and set up booths, a little skate ramp area, and also had some live bands both in the street and inside some stores and restaurants.

It was crazy walking around down there because there were tons of skater kids everywhere—I felt a little old walking around a group where the average age seemed to be 12, but it was cool to see so many people all hanging out and having a fun time. There were of course adults there too, including some you probably wouldn’t expect to find at such an event.

For example, there was a Sublime cover band playing and these two older people were totally having a ball doing some sort of jig and other random dance moves--seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that this could not possibly be their music scene. The older gentleman was totally rocking some loafers, a turtleneck underneath a pullover sweater, and topped off with a sport coat, while his lady had on some dress pants and jacket. They danced and danced and danced and were pretty entertaining to watch.

We watched the action for a bit before heading to a place to grab a drink while we waited for our table at this Italian restaurant to be available. Once inside the restaurant there was a live band playing a variety of music and added a nice ambiance to the meal. I got a pretty good pasta dish with some spicy sauce, and the free bread and spicy topping for it was good as well. We also amused ourselves here by finding all the instances of one guy with two ladies and speculating what was going on, which was pretty funny in the case of some pretty old people.

However, there was a table across from us that had a couple that was probably in their 50s, and sitting with them was a younger girl who was probably early 30s or so. We couldn't figure out their relationship because they didn't seem to be family, and when they walked away the dude held both their hands, and when they came back the ladies started like grasping each other's hands enthusiastically across the table. I wonder if they saw us looking at them because it was pretty much impossible to focus on anything else. Another older guy sat down with the younger girl for awhile, but then left. Really not sure what all that was about, but it was fun to make comments to each other and speculate.

It was a fun evening, and it was cool to go all the way down to Ventura and mix things up a bit. Ventura isn't normally so lively at night I don't think, so it was interesting to see it so full of people.

Posted at 1:08 PM |