The hotel’s website said it provided shuttle service Monday through Friday from 7 AM to 11 AM and from 4 PM to 9 PM. The site also said the shuttle had a three mile radius around the hotel. Checking Google Maps, I realized that was not going to work. I was traveling to Redondo Beach, CA, for a press trip and my hotel was off the infamous 405 three miles east of California’s South Bay and all the things I would be writing about. A rental car was out of my budget.

Redondo Beach is a quirk of geography. The boundaries on a map look like a puzzle piece. There is an eastern half that is three miles inland, sitting behind Hermosa Beach. Then like a diagonal move on a checkerboard, there is another square section to the south and west that is on the water. The entire municipality is only five square miles. The hotel on Marine Avenue put me at the far northeast corner making the beach almost 5 miles away at the southwest corner. I would need that shuttle, but it wouldn’t get me to Redondo Beach. It would only get me to Hermosa and then it was a two-mile walk.

My schedule for day one at Redondo Beach was paddle boarding in the morning, then lunch on the boardwalk and then dinner and beers at King Harbor Brewing Company about halfway between the beach and the hotel. I asked the hotel front desk for the shuttle. The desk clerk made a phone call and said John would arrive in a few minutes. As I waited in the lobby an older gentleman wearing khakis and denim shirt approached the front desk woman. She pointed to me.

“How far can you take me” I asked after he introduced himself. Asking exactly where I needed to go, I explained I wanted to be at King Harbor, but my understanding was the shuttle didn’t go that far. Even though I was talking to John, the desk clerk answered. She said I could be dropped off at Hermosa Beach and walk to King Harbor from there. John motioned for me to follow him outside. He opened the side door to the shuttle van for me to enter. After he got in the driver’s seat, he turned around and asked me where I wanted to go. I said as close to King Harbor as he could get.

“Where exactly do you need to be?”

“Specifically, Tarsan Paddle Rentals on North Harbor Drive.”

“Ok, I’ll just take you there,” he replied.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

Studying John in the rearview mirror I noticed he wore a tan beret and wire-rimmed glasses. Short salt and pepper hair could be seen below his cap and he had a grey mustache. I guessed he was in his late sixties. Since I like to try and figure people out, I imagined he was retired from some sort of long career and driving this van was something to keep him occupied.

As he drove he plied me with questions. When I said Colorado he responded how beautiful he thought Colorado was. He said he had spent a vacation visiting a friend in Colorado who took him to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. I mentioned that the first snow of the season had just fallen in the park a few days ago and it was only September. John laughed and said LA was going to have a mini-heat wave over the next few days. Today’s expected high was 100 degrees.

He asked what I was doing today and I told him my schedule. He then asked why I was here. I said I was a travel writer and in town as a guest of the tourist board. He chuckled saying that was some job I had. I also told him that I was a beer blogger and had a 4 PM appointment at King Harbor Brewing Company. I half joked about how I would need a ride from him that night because I would be drinking beer all evening. While John wouldn’t be able to drive me to the brewery because he was off duty from noon to 4 PM, he was more than happy to pick me up for the return.

Within minutes we passed by the large Redondo Beach/King Harbor sign. A few traffic lights after that he turned onto Harbor Drive and pulled the van over. We were at the entrance to King Harbor. Tarsan was actually a block behind me. John then handed me his business card and said his cell phone number was on it so I could call him directly.

I now had six hours to fill. I filled them with two hours of paddle boarding, a huge lunch at Captain Kidd’s Seafood Market and then a walk around Redondo Pier. John was right; the temperature did get up to 100. I stopped inside an ice cream shop to get some chilled relief in the form of a vanilla mocha ice cream cone. I took Uber to the brewery.

My interview at the brewery lasted almost two hours, during which I sampled a variety of the brewery’s beers. The brewery had a food truck out front, Bartz BBQ, so I ordered some brisket to-go before calling John. He needed to drop off another passenger before getting me. I plunked down on the curb to wait as the evening finally began to cool. As I waited, the food truck proprietor approached and asked if I wanted to take some sides with me.

“I’ll have too much leftover to take home. How about some mac and cheese on the house?” An offer I couldn’t refuse. He gave me a heaping spoonful of mac and cheese with the little crunchies on top. I love crunchies. A few minutes later John arrived in the big white van.

“Sorry it took me so long,” he apologized. “Ran into rush hour traffic.” I told him because of his delay I scored some free mac and cheese. He laughed and asked how my day went. I told him I came within a few feet of a sea lion on the paddle board, which was awesome. I also said the beer at the brewery was delicious. He stated Heineken was his beer of choice.

“I drink them at the Mermaid Inn with my friends. I live over in Hermosa, lived there for many years. Will you be visiting the Mermaid Inn?” I informed him since I was a guest of Redondo Beach tourism board, I wouldn’t be visiting anything Hermosa unfortunately. I set up my ride for the next day and wished him good evening.

I was in the lobby when John arrived shortly after 9:30 AM the next day.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“You’re not late,” I said. Once again he opened the van door for me and asked where I was going.

I said Marina Bike Rental on the corner of Beryl and Harbor Drive. Shortly after pulling out of the hotel parking lot, John’s cell phone rang. He answered the phone and put it on speaker, which meant I could hear every word. A woman on the phone asked him about a prescription. Since it wasn’t really my business, I looked out the window, pretending not to hear. John talked to the woman about visiting the doctor and getting “her” a prescription. Then toward the end of the conversation, they both spoke Spanish. John said he was sorry about the interruption, but I said no worries. He said that it was his mother’s Medicare case worker. His mother, who he said was 93 years old, was in the care of both him and his sister and that he needed to get permission before they would approve of things like prescriptions. The case worker was verifying that his mother had seen a doctor before getting new drugs. I marveled that his mother was 93.

We were heading down a hill on Herondo Street with the deep blue of California’s South Bay in the distance. On my right was Hermosa; on my left Redondo. John pointed to the hill on the right where apartment buildings overlooked the bay.

“My apartment is over there.”

“That’s close to the beach.” I said impressed. John laughed again.

He dropped me off at the bike rental shack and wished me a fun day before leaving. The rental shack wasn’t open yet. I sat on the deck stairs and opened my bag to take out my camera. That is when I made a startling realization. I forgot all my restaurant giftcards back at the hotel. All of them…in a little envelope…on the hotel room desk. The cards were to pay for the restaurants on the pier.

I considered forgoing the coupons and paying for my meals, but then decided against it. I barely get paid for the articles I write, let alone make enough money to fully fund this trip. I needed all the freebies I could get just break even. John’s shuttle duty would end at 11 AM. I called him.

“You’re not going to believe this, but I forgot something at the hotel. Can you come back and get me?” John said he was transporting another passenger, but could return when that was done.

Although it only took ten minutes, it felt like a half hour in the hot California sun when I saw the white van turn down the block. I opened the door myself and hopped in.

“I can’t believe I did that!” I said as John chuckled. He drove as fast the speed limit would allow and in less than 10 minutes we were back at the hotel. He took the opportunity to use the hotel “facilities” while I sprinted back to my room for the envelope. It was right where I left it. I sprinted back down to the van.

“That was fast!” he said as I hopped back into the van. It was after 10:30 AM and soon John would be off the clock. He returned me to Marina Bike Rentals and as he opened the door, I tried to hand him a ten-dollar bill and he handed it back.

“You just saved my butt!” I gushed, but he refused the cash.

I spent the afternoon riding the Marvin Braude Bike Trail on my rented cruiser north to Manhattan Beach and then I rode it back past the rental shop to the far southern end of Redondo Beach. I think I covered some 10 miles of the 22-mile trail. It was a beautiful Southern California day as I sat on the sand admiring the waves and the sand pipers and the few families who played at the shore on a school day. After returning the bike I enjoyed a Redondo Pier bar crawl during happy hour and ended my day watching the spectacular sun set over the Pacific Ocean. I ended my evening with a dinner of crab cakes at a fancy seafood restaurant. About 8 o’clock I called John. He asked if I knew where the roundabout was on the south side of the pier. Since I had passed it on the bike, I did know where it was. It was way outside the boundaries of the shuttle.

There was no mistaking the big white van when it came around the corner. I climbed in and said hello. John asked where I had been all day but I turned the tables and said, “Where do you like to go?”

He reiterated he loves Hermosa preferring to hang out at Hennessey with his friends next door to Mermaid Inn. I had ridden the bike by both earlier that day. He said he and his sister went to high school in Hermosa and when he retired he wanted to return. He then said he was in the service and spent 35 years in Alaska. Then the floodgate opened.

He asked if I noticed him speaking Spanish on the phone yesterday. When I said yes, he said that was because he was originally from Cuba. He was sent to Florida on a boat as a boy in 1962 and cared for by a foster family for five years until his parents made it to Florida. From there he went to a Presbyterian school in Shenandoah, IA, for several years. He even detasseled corn in the summer, something I said we had in common having done that myself growing up in Nebraska. From there the family moved to Hermosa and after high school he joined the service spending some time in Virginia and then the 35 years in Alaska. He actually enjoyed his time in Alaska, but when he retired, he knew he wanted to return to sunny California.

While sitting at a stop light he told me his father had a trucking company in Cuba and it did very well until Castro and the Communists came to power in 1961. After his grandfather passed away his dad took some money out of the grandfather’s bank account to pay for the funeral. However, the government didn’t believe him and put him in jail for a year. His mother spent that year fighting bureaucratic red tape and had to submit and resubmit receipts to show where the money went. The communists would say the paperwork wasn’t filled out properly or that they just didn’t believe her. After his father was released from jail they decided to leave.

John said he was trying to get a visa so he can return to Cuba, but since he arrived in the States before 1970, there were special regulations he needs making it harder. His sister had already returned. He said his boyhood home was still there and he wanted to see it. I asked him if he was scared when he came over on the boat and he said no. He said because he was so young, he didn’t know any better.

When we arrived at the lobby of the hotel, he got out of the driver seat and for the last time walked over to the passenger door to let me out. He wished me a safe return to Colorado.

“Next time you do one of these trips, come to Hermosa. I’ll show you around.”