Earlier this week, I made a somewhat impromptu trip to the LA area to visit family. This provided the opportunity to explore the metro area with my Great Uncle Dan on a photography expedition. We paid a visit to some old haunts including the industrial area around Wilimington near Long Beach: certainly not the touristy parts of LA. I feel a lot of gratitude for being able to see these areas of the city with Dan, who’s lived in the area for more than 50 years. Long enough to see the metro completely swallow the basin.

The industrial areas we explored seemed bleaker than they felt in the past for some reason. Perhaps that is a reflection of the place the country is in today. Our failures to provide affordable housing and address climate change being a few of them. The writing on a dumpster beneath a refinery (?) seemed especially poignant: “the sky is falling.” Not sure there is much arguing with Chicken Little today.