On Thursday I went straight from work to pick up my parents at the Quality Inn in Burbank. We then jetted across Burbank Boulevard to Robertson Honda to meet Amy. Dad likes the new Ridgeline, so it was also an excuse to get him into a dealership to look at it. We went to my apartment briefly and then it was off to Amazon on Ventura Boulevard. After eating my parents were too exhausted to do anything else, so I took them back to their hotel.
The next morning I bid farewell to Amy and headed over to the quality Inn to pick up my parents. We took the surface streets through Glendale, SilverLake and Echo Park into downtown. We parked on St Paul by the City of Hope building. It was time for the walking tour of downtown LA. We headed down Wilshire past my old workplace – Property ID “plaza” and made a left turn onto Flower. We walked down to the Library and across the Bunker Hill steps around Library Tower . From there we headed east on Grand Avenue past California Plaza and Museum of Contemporary Art (which was closed) to end up at the Disney Concert Hall . Across the street from there we visited the Performing Arts Center on our way to Our Lady of Angels Cathedral before crossing over the 101. After the 101 we made a right turn, then a left, and wandered into ChinaTown for a bit before turning SouthWest and heading towards Union Station . After a visit to Union Station we went to Olvera Street for lunch.
After lunch, we headed Northwest to the observation deck in City Hall. The sun finally peaked out after a morning of overcast very Ohio-ish gray sky. From there we made our way to nearby Little Tokyo before slugging through the wholesale and fashion districts on our way back up to the Figueroa international food court . After that we walked back across the 101 and to the parking garage.
After a little while on the 10 we were in Santa Monica. We walked out onto the beach and mom was sure to get her feet wet before we walked back up the hill to take a respite on the bluff before walking to Third Street Promenade . After that, they were done for the night. We took the long way back up Santa Monica Boulevard to La Brea then righting on Hollywood so they could see the walk of fame.
Saturday morning I found out that the Getty Center wouldn’t open until 10am. Since we had extra time I drove them down Mulholland Drive to the lookout point/s with a view of the valley. Once we arrived at the Getty Center we spent most of our time outside in the garden or at the viewpoints. We did manage to catch the current exhibit – The Late Religious Paintings of Rembrandt though.
From there we went down Sepulveda to Santa Monica Boulevard and took that into Beverly Hills for lunch; Dr. Veis (my boss) had recommended La Scala. Earlier in the day I had looked up the address for La Scala and found “410 N. Canon.” We looked around for and found 410 North Canon, but it was not La Scala. We decided to eat there anyway. Bad idea. The food was fairly bland and fairly expensive. After leaving and walking around for a bit we discovered that La Scala was just up the street at 434 North Canon. From there I took them through some of the Beverly Hills glitzy resedential neighborhoods. From there we drove down Sunset into West Hollywood where we passed by a 2005 Mercedes SLR McLaren (which MSRPs for $452,750) and three (different colored) Lamborghini Murcielagos all in a row. (Note: we passed a yellow Murcielago at a stop light the night before on Beverly Boulevard and saw several Bentley’s, Ferraris, Porsche’s and the like throughout the trip) We parked at Hollywood and Highland and walked down the walk of fame to the Chinese Theater . Then we went upstairs to Cold Stone Creamery for an ice cream treat. Afterwards I drove down Franklin past Bird Café and the Scientology Celebrity before heading up into the hills in a futile attempt to replicate the trip up to the Hollywood sign that I made with Byron once. It didn’t work. Even though I printed out a map of the general hills area I could seem to end up on any of the streets connecting to them. I think I needed to go a little further west, but after hitting more than three dead ends in precarious cliff streets (my car has a wide turning radius) I think my parents were getting tired of the nonsense, and I was certainly getting miffed. We went home.
Sunday we went straight down the Golden State Freeway to San Diego and ate at a Mexican place in the gaslamp district near F Street. We went to the Westfield mall there and mom bought me two pairs of sunglasses (it was buy two get a third free, so she got the free one for herself). I had been wary of picking out sunglasses because every other time I’ve tried to pick up a pair lately they’ve had flowers or jewels in them and I’ve been thoroughly embarrassed by my tendency to lean toward “pretty colors.” This time they had a few pair of blue lens glasses that didn’t look too girly, so I took them home. I had also been wary of getting cheap glasses because the last (and perhaps only) time I found a pair I liked was more than four years ago in Columbus. They were a pair of blue lens Alfinis. When they broke a few years later I was never able to find anything I liked as much. These pair still weren’t as good, but were good enough.
The glasses were just in time as our next stop was Tijuana, Mexico. We walked up the main drag and back (making a left at the “welcome to Tijuana” giant suspended sign –which now sports a video snippet of Fred Durst on the other side for some strange reason). After wandering for an hour or so my parents had had enough. We headed straight back to Los Angeles after the long walk back across the border. I dropped them off at the Quality Inn (they would fly out the next morning) around 8:30.
Phew!
Pictures coming soon in a zip (like the San Francisco trip)
