Like Eddie Izzard debating “Cake or Death?” so Caroline and I debated “Disneyland or Something Else?” It is Superbowl Sunday today, and supposedly, two out of three Americans are watching the game, implying Disneyland will be nearly empty, but since it is Sunday, our time in the park would have been short due to the drive back to Phoenix: Disneyland doesn’t open until 9:00, we would have to leave by 4:00, but knowing us we will stay until 8:00 or 9:00 pm, with the hour we lose on our drive east we won’t get home until 3:00 am in the morning. Cake or death?

How can we be so close with nothing else better to do and have to choose NOT to go to Disneyland? And so the decision was made to visit San Pedro. Like the idea of choosing cake or death, how does one come up with San Pedro as an alternative option? Easy, look at the map of L.A. and find somewhere you have not been and go there.

Ports O’ Call Marketplace was the first place to grab our attention upon reaching San Pedro. We arrived to find the place nearly empty, parked in front of the Crusty Crab restaurant, then meandered along the harbor before overhearing three old crusty crabs talking about “dagos” – their words, not mine.

We had eaten breakfast only three hours earlier, but the fish beckoned us to indulge before leaving for Phoenix. One of the fishmongers at the San Pedro Fish Market suggested we try cabrilla, so we picked one of the speckled, biggish piscine, paid for it, and hauled it across the way to have it dropped in the fryer.

While our fish boiling away in oil, we handed a bag of shrimp to another of the women behind the counter to have it prepared with fajita veggies.

We sat outside in the sun to eat our prize catch, the only Anglos amongst a few hundred Hispanics. We often wonder out loud why we are the only whites as we sit down in a Cuban bakery, stop for boba tea at Ten Ren, eat at a Filipino cafe, watch a Bollywood movie at Naz8 in Artesia, or are but one of just a few when we go shopping at Marukai – the number 1 Japanese Specialty Store in the United States. With the largest culturally diverse population in America, it is hard to fathom that we two visitors from Arizona are the only other people in all of Los Angeles who are curious enough to try new things. Everyone else must be eating cake.

Seeing we are saving so much time today by not going to Disneyland, we might as well use this little luxury to see a bit of ocean before we turn inland.