Today was scheduled to be a day of sun, surf and sand – a prelude to our cruise to the Mexican Riveria that’s been planned since close to Christmas and anticipated most of that time.
Unfortunately, the weather report didn’t come through on that. When we got up this morning it was cloudy, windy, and spitting rain. This didn’t deter us, though, and we were in the lobby and ready to meet our driver at the appointed hour of 10:00.
Then we hit a problem. Seems he’d shown up with a “mini-van”. There ain’t nothin’ “mini” about our group, and there was no way on God’s green earth that the eight of us were going to pack into a van made for 7 people. We decided to give it a try – after all, the guy was there and would be shut out of a day’s work since we were booked in for 6 hours – but it was not meant to be. For it to have even begun to work, Taylor, Jacob, Caleb and I had to sit in the back seat – and it was over-full with just the boys, before I added my dimensions to the crowd.
So we went back to the lobby and the concierge called for a 14 passenger van that she found. It was driven by a guy that we figured was Russian – it was hard to say, because he didn’t say 15 words the entire day – but he did take us to see different things. He also believed in using ALL the gas and ALL the brake pedals available ALL the time. Given the condition of a lot of the roads here, it was about like riding a buckboard most of the day.
We started off at Malibu Beach, which is furthest North up the coast. This is a far cry from what we’re used to in North Carolina as a beach. Amazing cliffs (which we climbed down – thank heavens the taxpayers of California have provided a nice set of steps to make this as easy as possible) that shear off into the ocean, and huge boulders in the water.
There wasn’t anyone surfing here – in fact, nobody other than a group of little girls having a birthday party was even in the water, and they were limited to ankle deep and squealing every time a wave came in.
Next, we went down to Venice Beach. This is the one you see on television all the time when they’re showing a California beach. The reality is, it’s pretty grubby – worse than Myrtle Beach, even, in that it’s got a gazillion T-shirt, sunglass and junk shops lining it along with an assortment of “state fair” food booths. Combine that with the street performers that seem to be about every 30 feet and it makes for a kind of unsavory environment. It didn’t take long to recognize that we didn’t need much of what they were selling and decide to leave.
After that, the driver asked if we were ready for lunch. It was pushing 2:00 by then and despite another gorging at the breakfast buffet in the hotel the kids were again ready to eat so he said he was going to take us to a “very special” burger place with the best burgers ever.
Mind you, this was the most he’d said all day.
After we parked, we realized the “special” burger place was actually a California Institution, one of the thousands of “In and Out Burger” franchises.
For those not in the know, these are about as common as Checkers in North Carolina, or Braum’s Ice Cream Stores in Oklahoma. Braums has a better burger and fries, incidentally. It was sustenance, though, and gave Eddie and I a chance to run to the Albertson’s Grocery across the street and fill the errand order while they finished eating.
On the way back he took us through a couple of the same neighborhoods that we’d seen yesterday, again proving that he had full capacity and training in the use of both the accelerator and the brake pedals in the van. He didn’t do this with commentary like yesterday, so the result was that we drove around without a clue where we were going (other than recognizing some of the landmarks from yesterday’s tour) until we’d suddenly stop and he announced, “Playboy Mansion”.
One of the funniest tidbits he gave us early in the day, on the way to Malibu, was when we sailed past a house at about 60 miles an hour and he announced “. . . Cher’s House”. No prelude, no warning so we could take a pic – just the announcement in time to look over our shoulders to see what we just passed.
The anomaly, though, was that Caleb popped up with the question, “Who’s Cher?” After looks of amazement crossed all the adults, we realized that he’d simply verbalized what all the kids were thinking – they had no clue who this icon of pop culture is and nothing, not even “I got you, Babe” was going to change that.
The adults all aged a bit.
After seeing Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion, he then zoomed us up the hill toward a Japanese restaurant, where we got a spectacular view of the Hollywood sign. By then the fog had lifted a bit and we had a pretty decent view of it from that angle, so of course we took more pictures.
A bit more zooming around and we were eventually back to the hotel in time for a short rest before dinner. I’d been checking in with Mom and Dad during their flight today, so we knew they were in LA and at their hotel, they’d grabbed an early burger for supper and were safely tucked in for the night.
Dinner at the Hotel
We apparently stumbled onto something here. They have this enormous seafood buffet some nights, and tonight was the night. I’ve never seen that much seafood set out on tables for the taking, and not a single bite of it deep fried. In fact, other than the Shrimp Fried Rice, I didn’t see ANYTHING there that was dipped in batter and dropped in hot lard prior to eating.
It was very good – there were enough non-seafood items there to keep the beef eaters in the group happy, and the sushi was apparently pretty good because the restaurant was packed with people who were packing their plates with all the little tidbits.
We went back up to the room and Benita and Bobbie came to check out our view – we got the pool and the back side of the hills with the Hollywood sign on it. They’re across the hotel and got a parking lot. The view of the pool and hot tub is a slim blessing, though – you can see people down there, but not well enough to tell who it is. Thus we still run the debate of whether we need to go check on them or not.
Jordan opted out of the pool / hot tub again, but the boys couldn’t wait to get on their trunks and head down. One suspects that there are girls down there in the darkness as well, although it’s hard to tell from this distance. We probably will have to do “Rock, Paper, Scissors” in a bit to see who’s going to go down and walk through, like Fred McMurry checking on Robbie, Chip and Ernie.
Tomorrow we catch the shuttle at 10:00. The review boards are mixed – some say that checkin is a breeze and one of the best they’ve ever encountered. Others say it’s only slightly less terrifying than an active war zone, and has about the same level of chaos. Either way, by the time the ship sails at 5:00 tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be on it and ready to head off to work on our tanlines in the sunny Mexican Riveria.
Well, that’s what we booked. That ain’t what we’re getting though. Unfortunately, the H1N1 flu virus came along a few weeks ago. As a result, travel to Mexico was discouraged and the cruise ship changed our itinerary. Thus, instead of working on our tans as we head toward the equator, we’ll have iceberg lookouts posted as we head North up the coast of California, stopping at San Francisco, Victoria Island, British Colombia, and Seattle, Washington. Not exactly the vacation we’d planned, but not a bad trip either. The only downside is that the forecast temperatures have highs in the mid-70’s throughout the entire trip. Thus, a lot of those shorts and swimsuits we were going to pack initially were traded for jeans and hoodies.
Now I’ve got to run down and check on Robbie, Chip and Ernie while Uncle Charlie fixes me a drink to have while I smoke my pipe and read my paper.
Oh, wait – that’s a different storyline altogether.
