.We decided to do something new this time since we had the dawg, we decided to check into a hotel rather than spend the night at a friends house.
We found a dawg-friendly hotel near the airport, checked in - left the exhausted dawg in the room to his own devices and spent a lovely evening with friends.
Got up the next morning, caught 1/2 of CBS Sunday Morning and headed out for what amounts to our annual LA visit.
We had breakfast at a neat little place in Venice Beach. And when I say, "Neat" I don't necessarily mean "clean". It was after we ordered that I noticed the "B" sign the window issued by the department of health. We decided to chance it, and I am happy to report, breakfast was and remained delicious.
The wife wanted to see an installation at the Getty and since they don't allow dawgs - I dropped her off and headed down the road to find a quiet, dawg-friendly place where I could sit outside and read.
I spent one hour driving in circles looking for a parking space in Westwood. The wife called and said she was ready to be picked up. "This is why I don't leave San Diego", I muttered to myself.
I did see Harrison Ford though. Which is weird. I don't go in for the celebrity sightings / autographs etc. I figure they are entertainers - no big whoop. But it is surreal to be 10 feet from someone whom you have seen dozens of times in the movies. You realize that there is an actual person named Harrison Ford walking around independent of the silver screen. He had a paper cup of coffee and a pastry. Huh.
After that we went back to Venice Beach and walked the canals and boardwalk. I will not try to relate that experience to you. If you have been there, you know what I mean - if you haven't, nothing I say will do it justice.
I will say this (and since I was born and raised in LA, I think I can speak with some measure of authority) going to LA sometimes feels like going to a circus as a child. There are some very talented people doing some amazing things (trapeze artists, lion tamers etc). There are some very talented people doing very funny things (clowns etc.). There are strange and exotic animals that you might never see anywhere else. The music is loud, the crowds are dense and between the candy, the popcorn and the animals, the smells are so thick, you don't inhale them - you wade through them.
But if you are a little older you realize that, amidst the show, there is an air of sadness and desperation. A sense that neither the people nor the animals are being cared for exactly as they should.
Which is not to say that all of LA is a loud, over-crowded stink-fest. But much of it is - and the loud over-crowded stink-fest epicenter is the Venice Beach boardwalk.
Once we had our fill, we continued our southward trek homeward and stopped off for lunch in Manhattan Beach. Utterly, wonderfully, delightful.
Stopped off at some friends' house in Oceanside for dinner and the trip was complete. All in all a great weekend.
Plus, the hour of circling, looking for a parking space in Westwood was more than made up for when my wife replied "I don't need to go back to Venice Beach for a very long time."
15 years of marriage - it just keeps getting better.
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