Yellow watermelon

Feeling adventurous, we left for Los Angeles on Saturday morning without so much as a map (although we did stop at a tourism office along the way and picked up a stack of maps and guidebooks, so that's probably cheating). We've met a number of people who "escaped" LA and moved to Santa Barbara for the slower pace and others who claim the trip down to the City of Angels is more bother than it's worth. Even Mason Jennings warns he "will stay away from LA" in a favorite song of ours. Nonsense. If the center of the world's entertainment industry is just down the freeway from us, we're going to see it. We've been in Santa Barbara for going on two months now and hadn't gone more than 10 miles out of town. It was time to explore.

As you may notice in our photos from the trip, we took the coastal highway down through Malibu and then cut up through Beverly Hills and into West Hollywood. We saw the Walk of Fame, ate lunch at a Polish place in Atwater Village (which has another story behind it), drove by Paramount Studios, took in the view from Mulholland Drive, walked a pier in Newport Beach, and had a milkshake during sunset in Laguna Beach. We drove the Sunset Strip, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica Blvd... all kinds of iconic streets. LA, at least the parts of it we visited, seems to be much more accessible of a city than New York was from Wilmington. We didn't even have to pay for parking the whole day.

Some quick observations: Hollywood is a little more run-down than I expected; Laguna Beach, a little more posh; Newport, a little more wild. The LA area as a whole seemed oddly smaller than it appears on camera and in my imagination and memories from 13 years ago (when I made a trip with my parents). And contrary to popular belief, there are not famous people walking all over the place. Rather, there are simply people all over the place. Yeah, we weren't the only tourists in town.

I'd definitely go back. Maybe next time we can see some TV show tapings or check Venice Beach off our list.

Our final destination on Saturday was actually Carlsbad, CA, which is about halfway between LA and San Diego. This is where R's uncle, aunt, and niece live. They were at a wedding on Saturday afternoon, so we met up with them later that night and spent it at their house. R's grandparents from Jersey and another uncle from Alaska were in town for the wedding too, so we were able to visit with the whole bunch on Sunday while we ate some excellent food, most memorably some king salmon straight from Alaska, Lee's amazing homemade pies, and, lastly, some bright yellow watermelon. Have you ever heard of such a thing? When you cut it open, it doesn't look how you'd expect watermelon to look, but it tastes great all the same.