Tuesday, July 27th, 2010--California limbo

Today was in between day--baseball tournament over, Peter arrived in town, one more day until we begin our trip northward up the coast. Most of the day was spent near the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn--Peter and Patrick, Max and the rest of the baseball team swam at long length through a warm Los Angeles afternoon. Alice was finishing up The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second of the Swedish thriller series, and making good progress. I'm reading the Mike Davis book City of Quartz, a book written in the early 1990's about the growth of LA--still relevant today and one of the favorite books of Bruce Diamond I remember from my post-Oberlin days.

We had several possible plans in the works for today, including trips to Pasedena or Claremont/McKenna, but none of them came to pass. Instead, it was mostly the pool and a late afternoon trip back to Walnut to see the finals of the tournment between Walnut and Simi Valley. Peter, Patrick, Max, and several others including Gary and Owen's mom Kierstyn played a whiffle ball tournament just prior to watching the game. The championship game was not very exciting, though it was nice to have a hometown element, as Walnut provided many of the fans for the game. Simi Valley was the better team and pulled away at the end to win by 6 or 7 runs.

Later that evening, we went to a Thai restaurant that we had heard was pretty good called the Banana Bay restaurant. Although it was just a few miles down the road from the hotel, the neighborhood was distinctly different--nearly every sign was in Korean or Chinese or Japanese. The restaurant itself was very good--spacious, crowded and very lively. The portions were very big, and they had a candy store and a giant fishtank in the lobby, as well as a Japanese cooking show on tv. Sean was reluctant to give straight answers to most questions. The fried taro was not so good, but the pad thai lasted until another evening.

Afterwards we walked around the faux village--a facade of french quarter style buildings and Alice discovered a Japanese-style photo booth arcade. We couldn't understand the directions for how to operate the machine, and got into a few debates about how to use it, however in the end--45 minutes too late--we got a set of family photos that will not be replicated. Back to the hotel and get ready to travel!

Thursday, August 5th, 2010--Lukens Lake

On our first day we made a trip to Lukens Lake--driving a few miles up the road, but not all the way to Tioga Rd.

Sunday, August 8th--Taking it easy in camp

After our eventful hike and evening yesterday, we decided to keep it simple and stay in camp most of the day today. A good thing, too, as the clouds which were to our northeast yesterday crept closer today--some low morning clouds and a touch more humidity in the air.

Wednesday August 11th--on to Mono Lake and Reno

Saturday August 14th--Ashland to Olympia

Sunday August 15th--back home!

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010--Hollywood!

Today we loaded up our Subaru and hit the road after another Holiday Inn breakfast. We headed toward Ventura where we would spend the night en route to the Channel Islands. Our first stop was Hollywood Goodwill to search for cast offs of the stars, which weren't to be found, although Peter found some interesting shoes, and Patrick some sunglasses. In the distance we could see the Hollywood sign as well as "Live Cheetah Girls" across the street. We made a quick pass by Dodger stadium but couldn't see much of the stadium.

Our next stop was Hollywood blvd, where Alice dropped off Peter and Patrick and I, and we walked on the avenue of the Stars--looking down at various known and unknown celebrity names--from Jayne Mansfield to Godzilla, Sam Cooke to Michael Jackson. A couple of cups of coffee and some yogurt and we were off to Beverly Hills. Thanks to the iPad we were able to navigate into Beverly Hills, and thanks to a map provided (for $10) by a woman under an umbrella who looked like she may have been a would-be star some years ago, giving us the locations of various celebrity mansions. We drove past Michael Jackson's mansion, Gene Kelly's estate, Quincy Jones' ravine top home. We passed Peter Falk's house, as well as attempted to find Jack Black's house, without much success. We had a lunch at the Beverly Hills park--a nice creekside park with a playground where we were told that the nannies of the stars come to play with their charges. Alice closely observed one such luminary, who seemed mostly to be a generic star--long golden locks, sunglasses, and someone who appeared to be a keeper. Meanwhile, Peter and Patrick and I played catch with our green football, veteran of many of our trips.

Our next stop was the Santa Monica pier, via Rodeo drive and Sunset Blvd. The Santa Monica pier was a nice suprise--a large pier with several rides including a roller coaster that P, P S rode, the thrill of falling enhanced by the height above the crashing waves--twice through! Peter jumped into the waves and Patrick waded--the only chance we had really to swim at the beach during this trip to SoCal. From the pier we headed north on a sunlight sunset drive through Malibu--which is on a peninsula north of Santa Monica. We grew jealous of the students at Pepperdine, located just uphill on the peninsula. We made it to Ventura just after sunset. Peter and Patrick and I went out on the Ventura pier to try our hand at surffishing, to little avail, but at least we gave it a try! Dinner from the corner fish and chips stand and a swim put us to bed, while Alice did laundry in a seedy part of Ventura, approached by a gentleman or two who recently visited the liquor store next door. Later in our trip we met a mental health profesional from Oxnard who told us that the Vagabond Inn and environs was the default mental health housing for that part of the county. We fit in just fine.