It's Tito Puente Jr. night at the Burton Chase Park, Marina Del Rey's "Summer Concert Series". The city hosts classical concerts on Thursday nights during the summer, and pop concerts on Saturdays. So far, they have featured "A Night at the Opera", and Oleta Adams. Upcoming concerts include some Ravel/Tchaikovsky piano, Aimee Mann and Frankie Avalon. Burton Chase Park is at the very end of Mindanao Way, in Marina Del Rey. To get there, take the 90 Freeway, and it will drop you to Mindanao Way. Just take that across the Lincoln\PCH, and into the marina. We parked on lot 4, which is about 500 yards from the park. Parking is $10. This is a dog-friendly park, and since it's outdoors, the concert itself allows dogs, as long as they are well-behaved and are willing to share the picnic food.
B and I brought some salami, cheese and olives, a couple of bread and mac salad from Guillano's, with an $8 bottle of Sangiovese and a couple of water bottle, we were very happy. We got there just in time, and squeezed ourselves to the side of the stage, right next to the statue.
The concert started at 7pm, and where we were seated, we caught a perfect sunset just right behind us. The building to the left of the sunset is new, I remember when it was still being built when I was kayaking on here 3 years ago with Marina Aquatic Center. The kayaking is $19 an hour on here, which is not cheap in comparison to what you can get at Sunset Rentals in Huntington Beach, but if you live in West LA, it's pretty convenient.
Marina Del Rey is an ideal place to live. Having lived in Mar Vista for years, which is 2-3 miles from here, I used to come here a lot to hang out, go shopping, and an old girlfriend of mine used to live in Mariner's Pointe (which has a great viewing areas for the Christmas boat parade) and Marina Point Apartments, which is across from one of my favorite shopping areas in West LA called Villa Marina Marketplace, where I can get in and out of the Loft, Bath and Body Works and Victoria's Secret, without too many parking spaces\traffic\people to deal with. DSW, Barnes and Noble, and my old time sushi place which is no more, called Ballona's were here.
There's a new shopping center in Marina Del Rey called Waterside, which has BCBG, Rainbow Acres, White House/Black Market, and California Pizza Kitchen is on here too. On the other side by Mother's Beach, has my favorite Cheesecake Factory. There's also the Chart House, and Marriott's 'Glow' lounge is also nearby. Also on Admiralty Way is Tony P's, the Warehouse (awesome pot roast and Sunday Brunch), and Fisherman Village on Fiji Way offers El Torito for Taco Tuesdays, Shanghai Reds, etc. There's another sunday brunch place that I enjoyed in MDR that I can't think of the name right now. And, Aunt Kizzy's recently moved to a larger place near Washington and Lincoln.
I love, love Marina Del Rey. There's nothing bad that I can say about this place except for the fact that it is too expensive. Even if you can afford a condo, the HOA alone is $500-$1K. But unlike South Bay, it's easy to get to, and still can be a family-friendly place. One of my favorite places in MDR is Brennan's, an Irish pub on Lincoln that hosts two turtle races on Thursday nights.
Going back to the concert, B and I had a great time. After stuffing ourselves with our grind, we decided to join the mass of audiences who started dancing in front of the stage. There were some pretty good dancers, and everyone was just having a great time. I mean, with the sunset to your right, sitting on a beautifully-maintained park, watching the sailboats go by, and the yachts parked with people partying and listening to the music as well, happy kids, dogs and family around, a bottle of wine and some deli - - -
-- it can't get any better than this.
My mom loved the cha-cha, so when Tito played some cha-cha number, I strutted my stuff in front of B, and we were having a great time teaching him to step back and forth. With the song, we kinda looked like we knew what we were doing. But it's probably the wine and the dancing. In no time, I shedded off my sweater, and then my sweatshirt, and was back to my 'fancy' tank blouse. So if you ever get cold near the marina waterfront, you should just dance your butt off.
Dance until you get warm.
I have seen Henry Mancini's daughter perform here before, and that was amazing. But Tito got everyone going from the start, belting out Tito Puente songs, such as "Ran Kan Kan", to his last number,which is also made famous by Celia Cruz and Santana called "Oye Como Va". It was one of the most fun concerts I've ever been to. And to top if off, as our favorite local mattress ad radio personality would say, "it's FREEEEEEE!!!"
We could have taken Tico with us tonight, but being a young GSD, he could be unpredictable; so we wanted to enjoy ourselves, as well as we did not want to inconvenience anyone else, in case he started barking or getting restless. Hopefully next year, we can take him, but we'll see. In the meantime, it's Redondo Beach Dog Park and Huntington Beach Dog Beach once again for him this past weekend. I really need to get back into discovering new dog parks/beaches. There's still a ton for us to check out in the greater LA alone, so I have no excuses whatsoever.
Summer is always crazy since there's so many places that B and I want to go to that's for the two of us alone.
Such is the Tico-less Tito Puente Jr. night.
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