Sunday, October 19, 2014

Trip to Los Angeles, October 8-12, 2014

Dorine, Murray, Cait
Darren and Cait's place in Lawndale


Going to see "Meet the Mormons"
Street view of the house (in back)



"How did he do such terrific stunts...?"

"It's not the years, honey--it's the mileage"
Me with Murray
On Hollywood Blvd.
















 
At Redondo Beach
At In-N-Out Burger in Kingman











Redondo Beach
Hollywood Blvd.











Dorine at Redondo Beach
Getting ready to leave






Google Earth view of Darren and Cait's house
Hollywood Blvd.
Watching "Rudy"

Getting ready to leave
Getting ready to leave























Dorine was off work on Thursday, October 9, and Friday, October 10, so we decided to travel to southern California to visit with our son Darren and his wife Cait.  We waited too long to get decent airfare, so we finally decided to drive to Los Angeles and back. Ultimately, Mike and Judy decided to go with us, with (a) Mike driving his Lexus the whole way out and back, and (b) Dorine and me paying for gas.  Mike had a cousin in SoCal whom he wanted to visit, although, serendipitously, it turned out that Mike and Judy's oldest son, Ryan (along with his wife Kaylee and daughter Maycee), were planning a trip to Disneyland from SLC and would be in LA at the same time.

We left Albuquerque on Wednesday afternoon the 8th, driving to Phoenix and staying the night at a Worldmark resort there.  We got on westbound I-10 the next day; unfortunately, we pulled into LA at rush hour and spent the next hour trying to dodge traffic jams as we wended our way to the 405 freeway and Rosecrans Avenue, the exit nearest to Darren and Cait's house in Lawndale.  Dorine and I spent three nights with them, sleeping in their spare bedroom on an air mattress.  We didn't do a whole lot -- a little sight-seeing on Friday morning with Cait; a little shopping on Friday afternoon after Cait went to work; a trip on Friday night to the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center in LA to see Meet the Mormons, the new feature film produced by the LDS Church; and a drive on Saturday with Darren and Cait to Hollywood, where we saw the Hollywood Wax Museum, part of the Walk of Fame, and Mann's Chinese Theater.  (Later, we met up with my old friend Galen Kekauoha at the Universal Studios "Citywalk," where we ate lunch at Tony Roma's and visited for the better part of two hours.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures there as I ought to have done.)  Finally, that evening we drove to Redondo Beach, where we walked around the pier for a while.

Mike and Judy (who had done Disneyland on Friday night, then went to hear Sheri Dew speak on Saturday evening) came and got Dorine and me on Sunday morning, and we drove all the way home from there via I-15 and I-40.  I'm glad Mike and Judy could go, as their conversation definitely relieves the tedium of long hours in the car, and my being behind the wheel on such a lengthy trip would have done a large number on me.

Cait and Darren seem to be doing fine.  Darren is waiting for a security clearance in his job (working for Boeing in El Segundo), and he rides the Metro to work every day.  Cait, in addition to her part-time "nanny" job, is looking for another job to do during the day, and she'd like to start graduate school soon, probably at UCLA.  Their home, given the sky-high rents in LA, is the right combination of size, affordability, and location.