friday 04.08.2005 (day one.)
I’ve had some bad luck with Northwest Airlines. After some time spent on the de-icing pad at MSP International (it was 70 and sunny), a drunk-sounding head flight attendant, and a pilot who regaled us with fascinating details about turbulence, we made it to LAX pretty much on time. We hopped the shuttle to the rent-a-car place, where we found them out of the basic mid-size cars. We were excited about maybe getting a hot car in California. We were so wrong.
We ended up with a Chrysler 300, the pimpmobile for the geriatric set. My dad loves this car. Us, not so much. Before even leaving the lot, Stephanie declared her undying hatred for it. I hoped it had ‘I AM A RENTAL’ stickered all over the back so people wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking we owned it. We promptly named it ‘Dick’.
It was sunny but too windy and cold to head right to the beach per the original plan, so we decided to drive up the beach to Santa Barbara, one of my favorite sights on my west-coast roadtrip. We got lost on Sepulveda Boulevard (I preferred ‘Sepultura Boulevard’ instead, which meant that I had to mention the band every single time we saw that street after that, no less than 50 times). We finally found our way to Santa Monica, and from there, the PCH. I wanted to take that up the coast, since that was the only stretch I missed when I drove down from San Francisco.
We stopped for burritos at a little place on the side of the road in Malibu, and sat out on the patio in the sun with the too-stereotypical surfer kids. I was thrilled to be having my first perfect California moment of the trip. 
In Zuma Beach, we were slowed by a movie or TV show; cops were escorting a trailer up and down the highway past film crews in a parking lot. We stopped at Starbucks for iced coffee, and I knew I was in California because the soymilk was out on the counter. It doesn’t happen anywhere else. Also, I love all the crazy beach vehicles in SoCal. It sucks that dune buggies are so impractical in Minnesota.
After the beach towns and naval bases, highway 1 heads inland towards produce farms and industrial-looking towns. We stopped at a roadside stand for fresh strawberries, then drove like crazy to Santa Barbara. I was hoping to get to the beach there, but it was so windy it hurt, and the sun managed to go away the second we arrived. I still love Santa Barbara for the cute little downtown and tall, skinny palm trees lining the beach. Stephanie was unimpressed; we decided to head back to Santa Monica.
After our first run-in with the huge mess that is LA traffic, we made it to the 3rd Street Promenade. I had been there before and was kind of unimpressed with the shopping (although the crazy street-performers and people-watching and dinosaur topiaries make it worth the trip). However, I knew they now had a Kid Robot there, so I had to visit. Also, I really wanted a pretzel, and Wetzel was happy to sell me one.
We wandered for a while, but were tired from all the flying and driving, so we went to check into the hotel. Priceline had secured me a very swank room for a very very low price, right on Century Boulevard near the airport. After unpacking, we decided we needed pizza, but didn’t want to pay $11 to get the car out of the lot. Stephanie had seen a CPK sign nearby, so we set out wandering down Century to find it. We finally stopped into a hotel to ask, and were told it was actually their training center, not a restaurant. We went back to our hotel and ordered room service instead, delivered by a little guy named Pinkey. Then we crashed.
Posted in los angeles on April 24th, 2005 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: california, los angeles, malibu, santa barbara, santa monica
Saturday morning, I had trouble with the time change thing and woke at 4:30am. I forced myself to go back to sleep til 7, lest I encounter a beating from my sister. We were on the road around 8, in search of coffee and then tourism, in order of importance. We drove up to Griffith Park, having heard the observatory offered the best view of the city.
Well, the hike was a lot longer than we thought. And steeper. And incredible. Halfway up the mountain, you have excellent views of the whole city to the southwest, as well as the Hollywood sign. Closer to the top, you can see the mountains to the north, and at the summit you have a 360-degree view.
There were a lot of people getting their daily workout on that hill. I was marveling at the joggers, some of whom were moving at a pace not much faster than our walk. I couldn’t believe people would run up that path, so I had to try it. It was exhausting, but somehow not as bad as I thought. I spent the rest of the hike wanting to run a lot, but knowing I might get a) yelled at or b) dehydrated.
We got Dick (the maturity level is high with us, yes indeed) and found ourselves a Trader Joe’s near the park. We bought fresh fruit and such for a picnic, then headed back to the beach at Santa Monica. The place was crazy, with the people on the promenade and the pier. It was sunny and would’ve been pretty warm if it weren’t for the wind. We crossed to the pier, went down to the beach, and had lunch, and then I laid on the blanket for a while. When it got too cold, we headed up to the pier, walking down to the end where we were nearly blown off into the ocean.
We decided to head back into LA to cover the obligatory touristy stuff, hoping we’d get more time at the ocean when the wind wasn’t quite so intense.
We stopped for coffee before heading to the La Brea tarpits. Stephanie was amused at the Chinese businessmen in Starbucks who kept reading my hoodie; I was just hoping it didn’t say something offensive.
There was some big event going on at the Kodak Theatre, the whole red carpet/limo bit, and the impersonator-folks were out in force. We saw Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper, Superman, Catwoman with her ass exposed, Beetlejuice, a fat Spiderman, and various others. Grauman’s was mobbed as always. We took a look at the footprints and the stars on the street, and were generally unimpressed. Hollywood celebs don’t do a whole lot for me.
We took Sunset Boulevard into Beverly Hills, and spend some time driving through the neighborhoods gawking at stars’ homes. Again, not so impressive. We drove way up in the hills, and then down again, and could smell Dick’s brakes. We decided to let him rest for a while, so we drove down to Rodeo Drive to check out the shopping. I didn’t expect I’d find anything to interest me there, but then I found the Taschen store. I love their books. I didn’t see anything different than what Amazon could sell me for cheaper, but it was cool to see all their stuff in one place. We went up to Via Rodeo and saw the really high-end stuff. I admit it’s an irritating habit of mine to get pissed off about it, but I do. God knows I can shop, but there’s a level at which spending that amount of cash on something becomes really obscene. Anyway. My sister pointed out a Maserati on the street, which I guess was a big deal. We’d been seeing Bentleys all day, so I wasn’t sure how it was different.
Because Old Town is so touristy, it features excellent people-watching. We spent lunch trying to figure out what the deal was with all the people around us. I told Stephanie that she had to be sure to look at this girl behind us on the way out, because ’she has a certain completely non-charming innocence.’ She laughed really hard at me and declared that ‘a patented Jenni Ripley diss’. I was proud.
Leaving Old Town, we got some sugar-free ice cream. It was awesome and made me really sleepy and goofy. We were in such hysterics on the way to Cabrillo that she was begging me to stop laughing so we didn’t get in an accident; I wasn’t even driving.
We went in and enjoyed the very swank marble bathrooms. We saw the atrium and the multiple pools and tennis courts and patios and restaurants. I had a really bizarre moment when I rounded a corner, caught of a glimpse of someone, thought, ‘hey, that girl looks interesting,’ and realized I was looking at myself in the mirror. I swear to god, I’m losing it.
It was getting late, so we decided to head back to LA and hopefully find dinner along the way. Stephanie drives like I do (although with less phone-talking and text-messaging), so it only took a little over an hour. We decided to pull off for dinner in Huntington Beach. As she dodged cars on the exit ramp, she yelled, ‘DICK, DON’T FAIL ME NOW!!’ Which of course began the driving-off-the-road-laughing routine again.
We drove through a business district on Melrose I thought was downtown, until we happened upon the real downtown. We found the original pueblo, so we stopped and walked around there for a while. They had another large array of Mexican-trinket shops there as well, so of course I had to look at them all. We thought the pueblo would be a bigger deal (or perhaps one specific building), but it was interesting anyway. We decided we wouldn’t have time for Chinatown, and I wanted to dine at my favorite LA restaurant from last time around, so we headed over to