Los Angeles

I do not know LA well, and that includes the downtown area. I don't know the basic lay of the land, I don't know how and where the city developed, and I didn't realize that downtown actually had hills. Or at least some hills. Probably stuff pushed up along the many faults that crisscross the basin. I should do some homework on the natural history and early development of the LA basin before I visit the next time.

We mainly drove around downtown - seems an appropriate way to explore LA - but eventually found a place to park at the north end between City Hall and Union Station and did some walking. Walking seemed an appropriate way to offset our vacation eating habits.

We walked up through Grand Park to the Concert Hall, then back down to Olivera Street for a churro and a respado (my foreign language skills often are limited to food). As with the rest of the trip, we enjoyed the clear weather and the moderate temperatures.

Monterey Park

More food pictures! Is that a problem?

I guess we could have gone back to Blu Jam again (and again and again) - or any of a dozen other breakfast places that I had seen recommended - but I knew M would enjoy Dim Sum, so we drove east from LA to Monterey Park. Keeping with the point of the trip, she had no clue where we were going, but the fact that all the signs on Atlantic Boulevard were in Chinese may have given her some hints.

The Elite is actually a menu-based Dim Sum place - a little unusual, but I found it more helpful than dealing with a line of carts coming by the table loaded with dumplings in unknown categories.  I actually knew what we were eating.  M would have been happy either way.

Silver Lake

We were staying on Sunset between Silver Lake and Echo Park. I had heard the nearby neighborhoods might be interesting places to check out and that there were a lot of good places to eat. Our visit was too short to really spend much time exploring, but we did have a great dinner at Barbrix on Hyperion. It was a cool evening on the patio, but heat lamps kept it comfortable.


The next morning (Friday), I went out early as I often do and drove back up Sunset to Intelligentsia Coffee, where I sacrificed a chocolate croissant. It had to hold me over until what I knew would be a late brunch.

Venice Beach

After Santa Monica, we drove south to Venice.  Each of these beach communities has a different flavor. The hotels and condos and amusement park rides gave way to t-shirt shops and buskers and spray painted murals.

We wandered north along the Boardwalk (not really boards) and then back along the beach - assuring that despite the inland nature of most of this adventure, I'd have something to blog about on Gravel Beach.

I filled up with coffee at Menotti's - a very good latte from a very nice machine in a very uncluttered shop right on Windward Ave - before we turned away from the ocean and headed back towards the rest of LA.

Santa Monica

Having been fed well, we headed to the beach and the west end of Route 66 (which we would intersect several more times farther east in the days to come). We parked along Palisades Park and walked to the pier, where we enjoyed the sunny, but not too hot, weather and rode on both the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster.

Note: the song Palisades Park, the one about stopping "on the top of the Ferris Wheel" is written about the one in New Jersey, not this one, even if the Beach Boys covered it later.

Melrose Avenue

Thursday morning, with M still sleeping, I caught the 704 Rapid Ride back to Union Station where I picked up our car at Hertz and returned to the hotel. Once we were really awake, we headed west through Hollywood to the Blu Jam Cafe, where we kicked off the trip with a great breakfast.

Seattle

This whole thing started with the idea of a surprise trip for M in anticipation of a big upcoming birthday, but it evolved into more of a magical mystery tour.  Fortunately, she seemed perfectly content to let it unfold and even more fortunately, I managed to avoid any significant slips and somehow the whole thing worked.

It was both a diverse and a packed week, which means it will spread out across two dozen posts.

We left a week ago Wednesday at 4 in the afternoon. A Car2Go appeared in the driveway and we spent several minutes (at 41 cents each) trying to figure out how to open the tailgate. It got us to the LINK light rail station in Columbia City and LINK got us to the airport. M didn't even look at her boarding pass going through security and didn't have any idea where we were going until they announced it at the gate.

We got into LAX and waited for a long time for the bus into downtown. Our final leg was a cab to our hotel, a pretty generic Comfort Inn in Silver Lake, right on Sunset Boulevard.  We got in well after midnight. I had told M that this would be latest night of the trip, but that she would be able to sleep in. I guess I also told her that we would be here for two nights.

Snoqualmie Falls

This is a forgotten entry from three weeks ago that I wanted to post before a deluge of more recent stuff from California and New Mexico.

What started as a dry winter got wet in March (by the end, it was the wettest March on record) and this Sunday excursion to the falls coincided with some very heavy flows on the river. The falls are pretty impressive, but they're one of those things that you do when you first move to Seattle or when you have out-of-town guests, but then become easy to forget or take for granted.

La Push

M was heading off to Ivar's for brunch with friends on Sunday, leaving me looking for a diversion. So I drove to the ocean. The ride out to the coast was remarkably nice, given how stormy it had been the night before, and how miserably wet it would be later in the day when I was driving back. There were patches of blue sky and a lot of fresh snow on the hills. Lake Crescent was beautiful.

It was four hours and a ferry ride and 150 miles of driving, but I was probably on Third Beach by the time the gang back in Seattle made their second trip back for lox and curried mussels. I was on Second Beach when they were dipping their strawberries in the chocolate fountain. And when they were paying their bill, I was sitting in my car in La Push eating a convenience store sandwich and potato chips as the next storm rolled in.  It was pouring and windy all the way home.

It was a neat day. But I should come back sometime in nice weather when the tide is low - and maybe even bring M!

Ebey's Landing

I think my favorite stretch of road on Puget Sound is this short stretch of Hill Road just south of Ebey's Landing. The road winds up the hill, just in from the edge of the bluff, and curves away into the trees. The views north toward Perego's Lagoon and the Strait are always spectacular and the forest perched above the high bluffs is quintessential Puget Sound.

Whidbey Island

It was the first Saturday of February, so that means I was on Whidbey Island for Sound Waters. As always, good talks, a bunch of familiar people, and just a lot of positive energy.  I performed my part and stayed around until early afternoon, but the sunshine was pulling me outside. The event (500+ again this year) was held at the Oak Harbor HS, so I pulled out of the parking lot past all the folks arriving for the Seahawks rally and turned right - 10 minutes later I was already parked and walking on the beach.

I walked 2-3 miles below the bluffs on West Beach before heading back to the car and working my way down the island.  My last stop, before racing off for the ferry, was at Fort Casey and the Admiralty Head Lighthouse.