We had a very good first day in Los Angeles. We thought we would do a city thing first, so I wanted to go to the Farmer's Market and The Grove. We took a slow surface route to get there and a faster freeway route back. On the way there, we stopped at a Starbucks for a nice couple of lattes out on their terrace. Carol added a generous piece of cake to her selection, but I held back. We had left my hat at the hotel, so I was not sure about the direct sun, but it felt so good so why not.
The LA car culture made for an alternately noisy and quiet enjoyment of the coffee, as the various plugs of muscle cars and motorcycles roared through the lights.
Eventually, after navigating through downtown LA we got to our goal. The Farmer's Market is a huge collection of ethnic and non-ethnic food stalls, some serving food to eat and some selling produce to take home. We skipped the eating part although some stalls left us drooling. We did pick up some fresh strawberries - the same Driscoll's that Loblaws sells, but I guess they save the best for the home market.
For lunch, we went back to the Grove, for an excellent steak et frites at a french sidewalk cafe, and a salmon on spinach for Carol, downed with a great California Pinot Noir. It was called Morel's French Steak House and in addition to great french food and wines from all over, they also had selections of gourmet cheeses. I must come back sometime to try some of the US gourmet cheeses (instead of Wisconsin bland clones).
I visited the giant Apple store at the Grove, equal in size and splendour to the SoHo one in NYC. They had all the latest stuff that hasn't quite made it to Canada yet. Carol visited numerous clothing stores and also found things that she has not seen in Canadian stores.
On the way back, Carol was surprised at the Hollywood sign on the mountain, even though she has seen it hundreds of times in the movies. We are still getting used to the time change. We got up at 6am and now at 7:30 pm, Carol is ready to crash.
Today we set aside for a slow beach tour, starting at Long Beach and driving down the Pacific Coastal Highway to Laguna Beach. The first stop was Huntington Beach, where surfers were trying out the relatively mild waves in wet suits. They performed well, but the good waves were few and far between. They had a background of 3 off-shore drilling platforms and beyond that many ships parked waiting to enter the ports of Long Beach or Los Angeles. On the other side of the highway were many, many on-shore active wells with their slowly moving tilt arms.
The next stop was Newport Beach where we had a couple of lattes again at a local Starbucks. We got caught up on local Orange County news via their newspapers. It seems to be more heavily Republican than northern California. There was an article about Northern California, Oregon and Washington states separating from the rest of the US and forming a new country of Pacifica, where all the Democratic ideals would hold sway. There was also an article about the Democrats wanting to move to Canada, but Canada had told them they would have to get in line and apply the way all other immigrants (non-refugee) have to. That cooled their ardour dramatically. The editorial waxed eloquently about the will of the people and about valuing morality over the economy or the war.
Finally, we arrived at our destination of Laguna Beach. We walked around a variety of their little shops, some ecclectic and artsy and others very similar to those we found at St Armand's Circle in Sarasota, Florida. We ended up at a restaurant called the Greeter's Corner instead of the upscale and hotel based Claes seafood restaurant. "Greeter's" featured two items - fresh fish and great hamburgers - and a terrace overlooking the boardwalk and the main beach with two beach volleyball courts. Unfortunately, we did not have a bunch of nubile young things playing for our edification, but the red snapper was excellent as was the friendly service, the terrace ambiance and the great weather.
This was a shorts and sandals day and we loved it.
We returned to LA by going inland into the hills and took the Santa Ana Freeway through Irvine to LA and our hotel.
Today we headed over to Hollywood, where we strolled down Hollywood Blvd, ending up at the big center at Hollywood and Highlands, which includes Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where the handprints and footprints of various stars are imbedded in concrete. Also there is the Kodak Theatre where the Academy awards are given out each year.
Interesting to see in the flesh. At the same center, we had a very nice lunch at Vert, "a Brasserie by Wolfgang Puck". I didn't know him from Adam, but Carol told me he's a well known chef. Everything we had was very good, and the ambience was plush and upscale, very California. We had a cozy banquette by a large window.
Afterwards, we went on to Beverly Hills, specifically Wiltshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive. Needless to say, we did not buy anything here, just a little too over the top. Maybe, if we were movie stars we could have gone shoplifting, but we are a little bit too straight-laced for that.
Then up Rodeo Drive into the residential parts of the street, and then up one of the canyon roads to Mulholland Drive at the very top of the Hills, for a sunset drive over to the Hollywood Freeway to head back to our hotel.
It was all a little tiring for Carol, too much walking, but we have recovered now, in the evening.
This morning it was partially cloudy and it had rained briefly. A storm had moved in from the Pacific. Rather than suffer occasional sprinkles, we thought that this should be the day to go to the desert to avoid the rain. So, off we set on I-210 east toward San Bernardino, skirting the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and the San Bernardino Range.
When we hit I-15, we headed north through the San Bernardino mountains until we broke out into the Mojave Desert. We went on to Barstow, which I had visited many years before. The sky was blue and we had beaten the rain.
In Barstow, we had lunch at Rosita's, obviously a Mexican restaurant. Rosita herself greeted us at the door and showed us to a table. We discussed the menu briefly, she told us she was the cook and she sent over one of her waitresses. This was not the high quality food we have been eating so far, but it was good. We managed to enjoy everything without overeating. On the way out, we met Rosita again at the cashier's station and after another brief chat, we had found out that she founded this restaurant 50 years ago, so it was here the last time I had visited, and yes, the town has changed a lot since she came here.
After lunch, we decided to explore the town a bit and ended up at the old railway station which had an old attached Fred Harvey House hotel called Casa Del Desierto. It has long since been abandoned and is now owned by the city for conservation. They have two museums there now, using parts of the building: the Western American Railroad Museum and the Old Route 66 Memorial Museum, both interesting. Main Street in Barstow is part of old Route 66.
It is still a major railway town, with a large yard and many long freight trains passing through every few minutes. Both Union Pacific and Santa Fe railroads use the yard and maintracks although it is owned by Santa Fe (now called BNSF - Burlington Northern Santa Fe - thanks to a merger). Even the Amtrak passenger train from Chicago to Los Angeles passes through and stops there.
On the way back, I wanted to do a detour to go by the town of Mojave, where Burt Rutan of SpaceShipOne recent fame works and Edwards Airforce Base, where the shuttles land when they land on the west coast. Many, many large military planes in evidence there! Obviously many KC-135s (707-like) and a couple of DC-10 like and about 4 747s. Overall, maybe 200 large planes. All on the ground and nothing in the air. I guess the US Airforce has Sundays off.
Another interesting day.
This morning, after our by now standard Starbucks start, we headed over to Manhattan Beach to soak up some sunshine. This is a trendy little beach peopled by well-to-do yuppies rather than by the flat out filthy rich. We went out on their pier into the ocean to watch both the pelicans and the humans fish by the pier. The pelicans, with their extremely sharp eyes, diving from 30 feet up into the sea, coming up with live fish at least 50% of the time, while the humans, with simple lines (no overhead casting allowed) hanging over the pier railing, also about 30 feet above the sea, doing about as well with hooks. The pier floor was decorated with plaques to celebrate their annual beach volleyball tournament winners. The beach had 28 volleyball courts on the south side of the pier and about double that on the north side. Obviously a serious sport here.
We also walked around pretty well all of the shops on their main streets, not finding anything to tempt us. We also checked out the menus of the many interesting restaurants and finally settled on one named Rock'n Fish. Carol went for the fresh grilled Mahi-mahi, while I had the seafood gumbo, both excellent. We had noticed also an Indonesian restaurant, The Banyan, with branches in both Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach. I was very tempted, but they seemed to focus, yuppie style, on chicken, tempe and tofu, none of which Carol likes. There was one beef dish and one shrimp dish, but that limits the options. Just the same, we may come back to try it, as we can no longer find Indonesian food in Ottawa, Montreal or Toronto.
After lunch, after a further stroll around the town, we got into the car and headed north along the coast, past LAX, ending up in Santa Monica. Their pier is now the site of a Cirque de Soleil show with their tents. We'll pass on this idea. The beach side paths at both beaches are separated strictly into a pedestrian path and a bicycle/rollerblade path, with no mixing tolerated. Also the sidewalks in town strictly forbid skateboarding on the sidewalks. For such a "liberal" state, they are very big on "rules". Littering is punishable by a $1,000 fine!
We went home by surface roads, along Wiltshire, with only a little bit of freeway at the end, when I got tired of the city traffic. Also, I am getting good at the "car pool" lanes and privileges, which we meet by having two in the car. It is amazing to see the volume of cars (and giant SUVs) on the freeways and then notice that they are 99% occupied by only the driver.
Today, we went back to the Grove and the Farmer's Market in Hollywood. We hadn't been able to find strawberries as good as the ones we found there the first day, so back we went. This time we had lunch in the market rather than at a fancy restaurant. I got some Rendang Beef with some Gado-Gado salad on the side, good Indonesian fare, while Carol opted for some fresh fish in potato batter from another stall. We sat at a table in the common area - we did not have to return our china dishes as they are all common property - just left them on the table.
We bought some Maytag blue cheese, from the famous (in America only) Maytag Dairy located in Iowa, owned by two son's of the same Maytag who built those dishwashers. It is a very nice strong soft blue cheese, not available in Canada or France. Definitely gourmet! Stronger than Cambazola, cleaner, more consistent than Gorgonzola, more "blue" tasting than Stilton and not crumbly, dry like Danish blue.
Back at the Grove, we were constantly entertained by the synchronized music and fountain play, which has excellent choreography and is often quite surprising. They also have a complimentary double decker trolley car, on tracks, that takes people up and down the shopping street, and two giant bronze woodsmen on top of one of the buildings that strike two bronze bells in synchronism every hour. This time we caught the striking of noon, which gave it a good workout.
Carol will vouch it is a good place to shop, to eat and a good place to just browse and enjoy. A nice lazy day as our week draws to a close.
We had our morning lattes at the Starbucks at Manhattan Beach. Then, we spent some time watching a friendly beach volleyball game, and walking the pier again. Caught a few rays.
As lunchtime rolled around, we decided to try Redondo Beach, and explored their pier with both fish stores and fish restaurants. We decided on "Tony's Fishmarket Restaurant" right on the pier above the thundering waves and beach below.
We asked about the sea bass - from New Zealand, then about the red snapper - from Mexico, then the halibut - from Alaska. From the fish stores we had visited, we had noticed a lot of crabs of many different varieties and the rock lobsters, so we assumed something must be local, but the waitress explained that the Bay was still recovering from some illness and people were still nervous about eating/serving local fare.
Well, we were already there, so we had some New Zealand Sea Bass and some Mexican Red Snapper. I had a very nice clam chowder to start and Carol's salad was topped with baby shrimp and hard cooked eggs, and the fish were good. However, on a comparative scale of all our other meals, this was at the bottom, for just being ordinary.
This is more a reflection of how well we have been eating so far than on this meal.
Much later, we went to Long Beach and checked out the old Queen Mary in the harbour. It has become a hotel, several restaurants and bars and an entertainment venue. They advertise "daily cruises", but the beast is cemented in place and does not physically move, so we passed on that idea, whatever it is.
Carol thought the "hotel" was somewhat seedy, but the hallways and rooms are in old dark wood and in art deco style, so it certainly does look dated, but I thought it looked "interesting". The restaurants had more exciting menus and looked classier than where we had just had lunch, so that would have been a better choice. Hindsight is always better. I enjoyed the old corridors and the big dining room, but it was no "Royal Caribean"!
Now, we are packing up for our long flight home tomorrow. Should be an easy trip, we don't fly out until 12:20, so we can relax.
November, 2004
