Freeways and Studios

Nine days away from home. Seven full days in Los Angeles. A trusted friend housesitter to mind the fort. An expensive doggie resort to stash the dogs. A long term parking lot off the airport. A wake up at 4AM on departure day.

Day one: Travel. Get the roller skate rental car. Try to adjust to driving in L.A. Wife is pretty good because she used to drive in Bethesda. We go to our hotel. Then to see our son and his apartment. Then back to hotel and a jet lagged sleep.

Day two: Son and his roomate take us to Santa Monica. We buy them lunch on the Ocean. We walk to the end of the pier as a good tourist should. Rt.66. Then over to Venice Beach. Wonderful time. Hippies still exist. Out to the Burbank suburbs and dinner.

Day three: Son picks up his mother for touring of Beverly Hills, and shopping not at Beverly Hills. I take the rental car and the GPS and go out to the north across the Antelope Nat'l Park toward Mojave. I buy myself a fantasy flight in a glider over the mountains. I drive home over those mountains on the amazing Angeles Forrest Highway. It takes a couple extra hours but it is so worth it. A spectacular view at every hairpin switchback turn. Back at hotel wife and I walk to authentic Mexican eatery. And debrief our separate adventures.

Day four: Son picks us up and takes us to Universal City and we tour around. Then a wonderful driving tour of Santa Monica up the Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu. Wife and I go to our new favorite local Vegan restaurant.

Day five: Son picks us up very early and we go to CBS and wait in line and get processed to go to a taping of "The Price is Right". This takes all day and is fun for us because we visit with son all day. We enjoy the show. We eat a fine dinner with son.

Day six: We go to Warner Bros. and spend the day. We go to a nice studio tour. See the sets, the back lots and etc. We stand by for Conan, and just barely don't get in, but we had not waited in line at all. We went back to North Hollywood and went to our favorite restaurant.

Day seven: We hang out at the hotel and in the neighborhood in the AM and I eat street food which is fun. We go to the original "Bog Boy" at Taluka Lake, but we don't eat there. We eat at Marie Callender's bakery. Then back to Warner Bros. . We have tickets for live studio audience at the new Chelsea Handler sit com starring Laura Prepon. This taping takes over six hours but we enjoy it very much and are entertained by a great comedian in between "takes". We go back to our hotel on the Hollywood Freeway without needing the GPS.

Day eight: Son picks us up and takes us to a fine Indian restaurant in Sherman Oaks. We cruise Beverly Hills and head up the mountains to Griffith Observatory for great views of the area and the mountains. We say a big goodbye to son. Later wife and I go back to our favorite restaurant and I have tofu chicken yellow curry for the third time and love it.

Day nine: Travel home day. Wake up to beautiful weather. All nine days are perfect weather. Apparently this is normal, except for occasional acid rain and wildfires. We head out to LAX which is a Sunday madhouse. Dark comes soon travelling east and Baltimore has not the summer it had when we left. It is cold and the leaves are turning. We leave the long term parking lot in wife's Altima. I suggest a debrief at the Double T Diner in Annapolis. But wife wants to go to Outback even though she is a Vegan. We have a nice dinner. Then we are back in our own beds.

The Next morning: We sat in the sun on the front porch with sweaters on. The big farm across the street was a freshly disked and planted field of grooved brown earth when we left ten days ago. Now it was full of green virgin winter wheat that looked like a 200 acre lawn. We sipped coffee with the barn cats underfoot. They were glad mommy was back. We wished each other welcome home. LLITTY :::::+:::::