Cruising in the Rain

Visited the amazing Watt’s Towers, which were somewhat obscured by scaffolding, in the midst of renovation. Drove downtown again and through parts of East LA, looking at buildings, while the girls slept in back. The Wiltern Theatre and Bullock’s Building on Wilshire, the Farmer John Meat Packing plant in East LA ,covered with murals of dancing pigs. Stopped at the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax for awhile to shop and eat. One shop had nothing but hundreds of different kinds of hot sauce! That night we all met Joy’s partner Susan and went for a wonderful dinner at Dennis and Laura’s in Lomita. Dennis is an old friend whom i hadn’t seen for more than 22 years. He has a job cleaning and repairing oil refineries which sounds really intense but pays quite well. He sent me home with Bukowski’s Hollywood, an oddly hilarious book.

We didn’t go roller blading

We hung out at the beach with Dennis the next day and the girls sun-bathed, a lovely day, not too windy, then said goodbye all too soon and went to stay at the wacky Sea Sprite Motel on the strand in Hermosa Beach, got a cheap little room and one of us slept on the floor. The parking situation was laughable, people are paid to stand and guard the parking spaces. The desk clerk, who seemed like an old surfer, at first mistook me for his Aunt Edna. He was really spaced and amazingly slow even though it seemed that he had drunk a little too much coffee. He was still up working at 2am and then at 7:30am he was back there working again. Gina and I wanted to go roller blading up and down the Strand but Flora wanted to hurry home and do her homework. Ha! Actually she just missed hanging out with her girlfriends.

Cruised home up 395 to Boise 16 hours straight! Back to home, school and work (gardening, roofing, and skiing!). All in all a very successful trip! Next time i would like to go sailing or take the ferry to Catalina Island and also visit some of the botanical gardens and arboretums in the Los Angeles area.